


Death Mask

by xoverfiend



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 68,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7810723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoverfiend/pseuds/xoverfiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the death of Buffy, it feels like the world is moving on without her sister, Dawn. But a strange event leads her to new kid in town, Clark Kent, who's hiding more than a few secrets. Meanwhile, a vicious killer with a connection to Dawn piles up a body count. Together, can these two teenagers stop this deadly force?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville_ or any of the characters from those series present in this story. I also do not own any of the movies, music or other media referenced in the following story.

* * *

Clark sprang up out of his bed as he heard the sound of rapid footsteps. They were coming from maybe a block away, approaching fast. If Clark had been a human, he certainly wouldn't have heard them.

He could hear the feet hitting the ground with bone shattering force. No human made a noise like that when running. There was too much power in those steps, the kind of strength that would create unbelievable speed.

Clark raced to his window and pulled the curtains back. A small white shape shot along the road outside his house. Had he been a human, he would not have been able to make it out, would not even have seen it in the dark of night.

Seen _her_ , rather. The shape was a woman. Shorter than average, long blonde hair, beautiful. The moonlight on her white gown made her seem ethereal, something out of a fever dream. She shot right past his house and further down the street.

Clark blinked. That woman was moving faster than any human could move. The only other person Clark knew that could move at speeds like that was himself. Could it be possible then? Had Clark finally found another of his own species?

Clark darted to his window and yanked it open, wincing as he almost destroyed the frame. He stepped out, balancing effortlessly on the windowsill. He twisted to close the window behind him, more gently now. A quick step and he dropped from his second story window onto the ground below.

He took the impact without flinching. His inhuman ears took in the sounds of the night. No one around to see.

His bare feet push against the ground and suddenly he's off. The houses hurdle past him as each stride shoots him forward. He pushes himself but he can't seem to gain on her.

A few houses ahead, a porch light goes on. Crap. Clark slams his feet down. The pavement screeches and Clark fights to keep his balance as his momentum carries him forward, feet burning two long dark streaks into the sidewalk. Double crap.

The porch door opens and an elderly gentleman steps out. Clark starts walking forward, but he can hear the woman's footsteps getting fainter and fainter. Soon they're gone. He'd lost her. Clark groaned, ignoring the strange, suspicious looks the old man was giving him.

Now what? He could keep going in the direction she'd been headed. He might be able to follow her trail. Her steps on the pavement had left their mark, the glowing thermal print visible only to the eyes of Clark and certain special cameras. Though, perhaps now there was another who could see them. With the rush of the chase fading, Clark's other emotions all tried shouting over each other.

He'd always wondered if there were others like him, other aliens living on the planet Earth. Fear and excitement, hope and dread all warred within him. What should he do?

A long, shaky breath of cool California air calmed him. He could go now, try and follow her, but who knew where that would lead or how long it would take? Better to go home, regroup, look for her again another time when he could move carefully and methodically.

Clark grit his teeth as he stared down Sunnydale's Wilkins Road, questioning himself, wondering if he was making the right move. His hesitation might cost him his chance forever. Who knew if he could find this woman again, later. He might be losing his one chance to learn who he was and where he came from to his lifelong paranoia.

Clark shook his doubts off. He should move carefully, there was still a lot he didn't know. To begin with, that woman might not actually be one of his kind.

_Socrates is a man, but not all men are Socrates._

Just because that woman had displayed powers like his didn't automatically mean she had them because she was like him. There was too much he didn't know. He couldn't go rushing off.

Decision made, but feeling deflated, Clark made his walk back at human speeds. The same distance he had run in about a minute took him nearly twenty to walk. At least it was nice and cool out, the smell of freshly cut suburban lawns and the sound of crickets filled the air.

To keep his mind from going in circles, Clark indulged in a particular bad habit of his, eavesdropping. His acute hearing could easily pick up even small noises from the houses he was walking by. The more he focused, the more he could make out. But there wasn't much to listen to at this time of night. Technically, it was early morning, though not even the earliest early birds were up and about.

Still, there were some people watching tv, one house party where people were playing a game of drunk charades, and of course even at this hour there were inevitably people doing the chromosomal crossover. Clark tried his best to just block them out.

He knew listening in on people wasn't exactly good behavior, but it wasn't like he could turn his ears off.

_It's not like I'm really eavesdropping, I just happened to overhear…_ He told himself for the billionth time. It was technically true, usually. Clark overheard a lot, even when he didn't want to.

Clark reached his house. Still only a few weeks after the move, it was hard to think of it as home. He should probably make an effort for his parent's sake though, at least around them. The front door would be locked, which meant the only way in would be up. Clark listened in again. No one around. With one powerful push he leapt straight up to his bedroom window and landed on the window sill, balancing on the narrow ledge by the tips of his toes. He slid the window open, crept in, and slid it closed.

He could hear the steady breaths of his sleeping parents from their room down the hall, none the wiser. Clark fell back onto his bed and pulled the book out from under him. He found the place he had last left off. It was a treatise by a fringy-er scientist about the possibility of alien visitation to Earth. Clark wasn't really sold on the man's theories, but it was entertaining in the way that only really awful things could be.

He read the book in the total darkness of the room until the sun came up. He read it through, and he absorbed the words, but his mind was barely there. His thoughts were full of the odd blond woman. He had to be in school soon. Would he be able to focus? Thank god for Fridays.

* * *

Dawn Summers opened her eyes to her explosively pink room in the morning sun. For a while she simply lay there, head turned to stare at the red glow of her alarm clock sitting on the bedside nightstand. Another hour before the alarm went off. Why did she have to wake up now?

She'd been dreaming of her sister, Buffy. Those were always hard. Not the dreams themselves, but the waking. In her dreams, Dawn saved Buffy. A hundred ways, a hundred times, usually with superpowers, Dawn stopped her sister's death.

And when she woke up from those dreams, for a few moments, she'd forget. In her heart her sister would still be alive. But then came full wakefulness, and she would remember. That couldn't have waited another hour?

Dawn threw off her thick covers and sat up. No point trying to get back that hour. The dream was gone. Buffy was gone. Dawn was here.

There were bad days and marginally-less-bad days. This one wasn't off to a great start. Dawn's feet touched the soft carpet.

All was quiet. Willow and Tara must still be asleep. They'd had patrol the night before, must've gotten in late.

Dawn stood and stretched. Suddenly, an idea came to her. Why not make _them_ breakfast for a change? It couldn't be that hard. It might even make her feel better.

She opened her door and stepped out into the upstairs hall, turning and heading toward the bathroom, eyelids heavy.

She passed another bedroom, door ajar. She turned to look inside and her throat became tight. There on her sister's old bed was the Buffybot. The grotesque mockery of her sister lay disassembled on the bed awaiting repairs.

"Still not feeling well, huh?" Dawn's eyes traveled up to the robot's face, but she couldn't hold them for more than a few seconds. It really was an incredible likeness.

Dawn made herself keep walking. She went into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water from the sink. She stared herself in the mirror, water dripping from her face.

She remembered her sister's voice. _"The hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it."_

"Hey, now. No moping." Dawn had heard that if you smiled when you were sad, even if there wasn't much to smile about, it helped. Just the act of trying to be happy made you happier.

Dawn tried a smile.

Not quite right. Fake smiles always looked wrong. Dawn took a deep breath and closed her eyes. New tactic. She thought back to _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ the week before with all the Scoobies.

"' _Tis but a scratch!"_

She looked into the mirror again. Now there was an actual smile, she'd be damned if she wasn't feeling a bit better too.

"Make them proud," she whispered. Her mantra.

_Make them proud._

She thought of her mother and her sister. Water dripped off of her. She toweled her face dry. Time to face another day.

_Have I healed any more? Am I done yet? How much longer?_

For a second the thought of waking up like this, of an endless series of mornings like this, threatened to swallow her. She stepped out of the bathroom and tried to leave her dark cloud behind.

_One foot in front of the other._

It's how she survived.

She made her way downstairs into the kitchen. The sun shone through the window over the sink, making the tiles sparkle. It was looking like it'd be a beautiful day.

She hated it a little.

What to make? Her culinary experience included being able to layer sandwich ingredients between pieces of bread, and being able to pour both milk and cereal into a bowl simultaneously.

_How about eggs? And pancakes?_

Those should be easy enough. She'd seen them made a thousand times.

A few minutes later, she was proven wrong. The smoke alarm went off. Her hands dripped with butter and yolk. She thrust a sizzling frying pan under the faucet and watched the water run _in_ clear and run _out_ charcoal black.

She winced when she heard hurried footsteps down the stairs. Tara and Willow burst into the kitchen.

"Dawnie?" Tara was looking around at the mess on the kitchen counters.

"I, uh…" Dawn said, speaking up to be heard over the incessant screech of the smoke alarm. "tried to make breakfast for you guys. It didn't go _exactly_ as planned?"

Willow and Tara stared at her, and then they smiled.

"Well," Willow said, "it's the thought that counts."

Dawn felt an almost painful surge of affection in her chest for the two women who had moved in to look after her following Buffy's death.

Willow pulled a checkered dishcloth off the oven handle and started waving it in front of the smoke alarm.

Dawn turned to the faucet, still running, and washed off her failed attempt at breakfast. She turned around to see Tara staring at the ceiling, splattered with viscous gobs of goo that occasionally dripped to the floor.

"Oh," Dawn said, "they really should put a warning on the whisk. Why does it even need a setting that high?"

Willow grunted in frustration as the smoke alarm continued to chirp tauntingly. Willow stretched her arm towards it, fingers contorted in a strange shape. She spoke a word and the alarm abruptly sparked and went silent.

Dawn saw Tara frown and turn to Willow. A familiar pit opened up in Dawn's stomach. She felt a fight coming. She'd gotten more than enough of that with her mother and father, thank you very much.

"So, how was patrol?" Dawn asked as Willow turned back around.

"Oh,it was a rough one." Willow's hand went to her side automatically and she winced.

Dawn saw Tara's face morph from annoyance to concern.

"Does it still hurt, baby?" Tara walked over to Willow and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Nothing some ice and some kisses won't fix." Willow gave Tara a sultry smile and they leaned into each other.

That was more like it.

"Rough patrol huh? Lot of vamps?"

Willow and Tara gave Dawn a pensive look and then looked at each other.

"A few," Willow said.

"But you guys got them all, right?" Dawn prompted.

"Yeah." Tara's eyes kept shifting.

"It's okay, you know?" Dawn said. "Buffy never let me go on patrol, but she could still talk about it."

_Sometimes...usually so I'd stop bugging her about it._

"We know." Willow said.

"This whole week must've been hard," Dawn continued, "with the Buffybot out of commission."

Dawn saw their faces become pensive. They were onto her.

"I'm just waiting for a few specialty parts to come in, she should be up and running again soon." Willow said.

Dawn swallowed to steady the hammering of her chest. Now or never.

"Still, we don't know how long that'll take...I could probably, you know, help out."

Tara sighed. "Oh, sweetie. You know we can't let you do that."

"Why not? Guys, I'm fifteen now. That's how old Buffy was when she was Called, and she, Xander and Willow were only a year older when they started fighting monsters."

Tara opened her mouth to speak again, but Dawn charged through.

"It wouldn't have to be up on the front lines. I could provide support from the back. Like, logistics stuff, or research, or coordinating...things. Guys, I can _help_!"

_I need to help._

"Dawn," Willow said.

From her tone, from that look full of compassion and understanding, Dawn knew it was over. She'd failed again. They trotted out the usual parade of half-apologetic excuses and reasonings. Dawn wasn't really paying attention.

"Fine," she said.

Tara's soft smile was breaking her heart. "Come on sweetie, why don't you go get ready for school. I'll make us all some pancakes and you'll feel better after that."

Dawn looked around the kitchen. "Xander'll be here soon. Let me help you guys clean up my mess and then I'll go get ready."

Dawn left the kitchen, trying not to show her hurt on her face. They didn't deserve that. They just wanted to protect her, she knew that. But trouble always seemed to find her anyway, and if they wouldn't let her help them, she could at least get out of the way.

Now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure there was going to be a quiz today in math that she hadn't really studied for. They were like, two weeks into the school year, who quizzes this early?

This day was starting off just _super-fantastic_. Thank god for Fridays.

Or, as Willow insisted, more accurately, since Friday came from the goddess Frig-

_Thank goddess for fridays._


	2. Chapter 2

"Clark, are you alright?"

Clark looked across the table to his mother. "Yeah, I'm good."

"You haven't touched your breakfast yet."

Clark glanced down at his plate. The whole house smelled like sizzling bacon, eggs, and coffee. "Oh, yeah, I was just thinking."

Clark caught a concerned glance that shot between his mother and father, Martha and Jonathan Kent.

His father put down the newspaper he was reading. "Something on your mind?"

Clark's fork pinged against the edge of the plate. From the livingroom a local weatherman gave his forecast.

Sunny in Sunnydale.

Clark couldn't quite look his parents in the eyes. "I was doing some thinking last night…"

"...about?" his mother asked.

"About the day you guys found me."

"Oh?" His father was trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing. But Clark could hear the confusion underneath.

"Yeah," Clark said. "I was wondering if you guys could tell me about it again?"

His father took a sip of his black coffee. Stalling for time. "Clark, we've told that story a hundred times. You probably know it by heart."

"Please? I just want to confirm something."

"...well, alright then." His father's chair squeaked when the man leaned back into it. "Martha and I were out on the road, heading back home after buying flowers. We were out by coors field when the shower came down-"

Clark felt his grip on his fork tighten.

"-one of the meteors landed in the field right next to us. The shockwave overturned the truck. We blacked out. When we came too, your mom and I were hanging there, upside down. We tried to get out of the wreckage but we couldn't. That's when you came along. You couldn't have been more than three. You lifted up the corner of my truck and just smiled at us. Once we'd gotten free of the wreck, I went to where the meteor landed, found your ship…"

They were right, Clark did know this story by heart. Clark watched his father as the man spoke. Clark's eyes strayed to the long surgical scar on his father's jaw. Under the table, Clark clenched his fist and looked away.

"Are you sure you guys didn't see anything else that day?" Clark asked. "Did anyone else see anything, or did anyone strange come to town."

His father shook his head. "Not that we know of."

As Clark thought, there was no new information to be pulled from there. Still, it was worth a shot.

"What's this about, honey?" his mother asked.

What should he tell them? It was a strange feeling, considering not telling his parents something.

He'd always been able to tell them everything. A few months ago, it wouldn't even have been in question.

Now though…

Clark saw two likely outcomes of him telling them.

In the first, they freak. They either tell him not to look for the woman in white, something he couldn't do, or they decide to move again, something they couldn't _afford_ to do.

If that happened, Clark might never learn who this woman was, or if she had any connection to him, to his real origins.

The second possibility was that they'd try and help him look for this woman. But Clark still had no idea who he was looking for. All he did know was that this person was fast, and to be that fast, they needed to be pretty strong too.

If his parents found this person and she was dangerous…

Clark didn't even want to entertain the thought.

_If I can find out who she is, find out if she really even has anything to do with me, then I'll tell them._

"It's nothing," Clark said, "I was just thinking about some stuff. You know, that book I was reading about alien visitations and such just got me reminiscing I guess."

They weren't totally sold, but they were willing to accept it.

"Well," his mother said, "finish breakfast. It's almost time for you to head to school."

He probably should, but so long as the day was ripe for more awkward conversations…

"So, dad," Clark began, "I found this place outside of town. It's not too far, couple of miles. It's this old hiking trail that winds up this mountain. It's mostly forest, and hardly anyone ever goes up there any more, supposedly."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah." Clark nodded, pushing his food around the plate. "I was thinking, maybe, it'd be a good place for me to go for a run…"

His father turned away and looked out the window. That wasn't very hopeful.

"Clark," his father began, "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. We just got here, and we can't really be sure what's safe."

"You have to let me go eventually. It's been _months_ since my last time. I'm starting to feel it like never before." Clark looked down at the fork in his hand. "The other day I was in class writing out an equation on the blackboard and…"

_My hands started to shake._

"Clark," his dad reached across the table and took Clark's hands in his own. They were rough and calloused from a lifetime of farmwork. "We'll try and figure something out, but for now, we really just need to lay low. As it is, we dodged a serious bullet back in Smallville. I don't think we'll be so lucky a second time."

Clark couldn't look him in the eye. "Yeah, sure."

His parents exchanged uneasy glances, but they didn't say anything. Something was different between the three of them recently.

Clark had known he was adopted for many years, but only in these past few months did he find himself sometimes feeling like he wasn't their son.

He'd read somewhere that it was just a teenage thing. Distancing yourself from your parents, trying to seek your independence.

He really hoped so.

Later, as he took his usual route to school, he heard the barking of a dog. There were quite a few different kinds of dog barks. If you had sensitive ears, like Clark's, you could learn to tell the differences.

This one seemed panicked.

Clark frowned as he walked. The barking was coming from a block away. California sun drenched the pavement as everyone made their morning commutes.

The awkward conversation had made Clark leave early. If he wanted to, he could detour a little to see what had this dog so worked up.

_Sounds like none of your business._

But there was something about it that was giving Clark a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Each long, mournful bark made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

_Remember what happened last time you stuck your nose where it didn't belong? We had to leave home._

Clark kept walking, he tried to push the sound out of his head. He focused on anything else. He could hear the groan of plumbing as a man in a house he passed washed his dishes. The sound of three different news stations filtered out into the air. A dog was barking in warning-

_Dammit._

Clark altered his trajectory ever so slightly, making his way toward that vexing sound.

_I'll just pass by really quick. I'm sure nothing's wrong._

Clark stopped in front of a house painted a robin's egg blue. The dog was somewhere behind it, barking _at_ the house. Clark stood and stared.

He stared at the paved walkway that led to the steps of the porch. He stared, unable to turn away, at a tiny smudge on the pavement. Something so miniscule that it would have gone totally unnoticed by human eyes.

Clark wasn't so lucky.

That dark red fleck, one of many tiny drops forming a trail that led back to the door or the house, was unmistakable.

Blood.

_Just keep walking,_ he commanded himself.

Clark screwed his eyes shut. He took a long breath and held it. He counted to still the beating of his heart.

He narrowed his focus, seeking any sound from the house, but heard nothing.

_Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not human blood but some animal's,_ he thought to himself.

_Even if it is human blood, it's still not your problem,_ he told himself with finality.

_I'll just turn around now, and leave._

Clark opened his eyes again and saw the sinister ruby droplets glaring back at him.

_Crap._

The heavy curtains were drawn in the windows facing the street. Clark waited another minute before heading toward the house, double checking that he was unobserved. Clark walked up the steps to stand before the front door. He listened again. The house seemed empty. There wouldn't be anyone to answer a knock, probably.

Clark stared at the crack in the doorframe. The deadbolt was drawn back. Clark, having no fingerprints to worry about leaving behind, gingerly put his fingers around the doorknob and twisted.

Unlocked.

He opened the door quickly, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him.

He saw the trail, thicker now, leading from the door and further into the house.

Clark kept his breath shallow as he looked around. To his left was a staircase that led to the second floor, to his right the house opened up to the living room.

The blood led that way.

Clark quickly made his way through the living and dining rooms,following the trail, finding himself in the kitchen. He could feel blood pounding in his ears as he stood in front of the door to the basement. His fingers twitched as he reached out toward the knob of dull brass. It was cold to the touch.

Clark turned the knob and stared down into the darkness. But darkness meant very little to his inhuman eyes.

The body was there, waiting for him. An older man's corpse sprawling on the floor near the base of the stairs. An open wound in his chest. A pool of blood around him. His shirt stained red.

Clark stepped back, hand out, seeking the kitchen counter to steady himself as he gasped. The old iron smell of blood flooded in with that involuntary breath, so thick he could taste it swimming into the back of his throat where he proceeded to choke on it.

He felt his breakfast coming up. He clasped a hand over his mouth and willed his stomach to settle, feet already moving, propelling him. Back through the house. Up the stairs. Towards the bathroom.

He bent over the toilet.

_DNA evidence!_

Clark clapped both his hands over his mouth. He threw his head back. His throat spasmed in protest. His mouth filled with acidic bile, but he held it all in, swallowing it back down.

When he finally managed to stop gagging, Clark pushed himself along the bathroom tiles, sliding backwards until his back was to the wall where he leaned against it.

He could still smell the blood.

"Three point one four one five nine two six five three five nine…" he quickly recited to the ten-thousandth digit.

The shower stall had a sliding glass door with frosted windowpanes instead of curtains, illustrated with a pattern of falling leaves. Clark stared at them as he recited until he was calm, then he got up and took another breath.

Back in control.

He made his way to the bedroom and was fortunate enough to find a docked cordless on a nightstand next to a king sized bed.

Clark called emergency services and reported the body. He gave the woman a fake name, the address he remembered from some mail he'd seen out of the corner of his eye on the dining room table. He agreed to stay nearby for a statement, but he had no plans to do so.

There was a click and the long ring of the dial tone. Clark put the phone back on its dock and made his way back downstairs. He stood in front of the door, checking to make sure no one was watching, Clark stepped back out into the calm, bright, Sunnydale morning.

He felt like Orpheus out of the Underworld, _just don't look back and you'll be fine._

Had he not been so shaken, he might not have missed the neighbor watching him from their second floor window.


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay, it's friday, you know what that means. It's time to free our subconscious minds to flow without boundary or restriction. Start now."

Clark stared at the blank easel in front of him. He swallowed.

Mr. Manson's art class was Clark's very first class of the day. Every friday started with fifteen minutes of freeform. The class was an elective of Clark's, but not by choice. His late enrollment had made this class the only option. Something Clark regretted in times like this.

Mr. Manson said that the _"student mind was most energetic on friday, and he liked to free that creative force to explore its obsessions and passions without the strangulating structure of lesson plan."_

Direct quote.

But the last thing Clark needed right now was for his mind to wander on its own. After leaving the scene, Clark had made his way to school half-dazed. No one could know where he'd been. He needed to act totally normal.

Easy to say if you hadn't just wandered onto a brutal crime scene. Every step he had taken away from that house, the images he'd seen had followed him. Now as he stared into the vacant white canvas, his mind already painted it with blood and gore.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. He pried his mind away from the memory. He looked down at his workstation, at the tools available.

_Pastels maybe? Or some watercolor? That's soothing, right?_

He looked at the little ovals of paint on the tray. Blue, green, yellow, red. So much red.

_...maybe something in black and white instead._

He picked up a sketch pencil. It trembled in his grasp.

_Dammit, get a hold of yourself._

Clark took a long breath. He had to think about something else. Anything else, before someone noticed how weird he was being. But what?

Another memory swam to the surface. The woman in white, gliding through the dark streets like a ghost. There, Clark needed to make himself stay there.

He brought all of his focus onto the image of the woman, let it expand in his mind until it pushed everything else out. He saw that moment again with perfect clarity. Every angle and plane of her features, the twist and flow of each strand of hair, the look that burned in her eyes.

"Woah."

Clark's hand stopped moving across the canvas. He stared at it. He didn't remember moving it.

"Holy crap."

Clark blinked, disoriented. He turned to see two students standing behind him. Jane Connors and Kevin Wallstein. What were they staring at? Clark turned and looked back at his canvas.

_Oh crap._

It was her. Without him knowing, his damn alien brain had somehow hijacked his hands and sketched a portrait of the woman he had seen with almost photographic precision.

It didn't make any sense. Clark's artistic talent peaked at making a thanksgiving turkey out of a handprint. How had he managed this?

The answer, as it always was when it related to the workings of his alien nature, was unknown.

"Astounding."

Clark flinched when he heard Mr. Manson's voice from behind him. Clark turned and saw his teacher staring at the portrait. Behind his glasses, his eyes shone with something Clark couldn't identify but didn't like the look of.

He was a middle aged man with dark latin features and long hair he kept in a loose ponytail.

"Clark, why did you never say you could create such works?"

_Because I had no idea I could._

"Oh, I really don't know what happened, sir. I guess the...uh, muse was flowing?" Clark only half knew what he was talking about, but it sounded artsy enough.

Mr. Manson nodded sagaciously, as if Clark had just shared some deep wisdom that was secret between the two of them. Now everyone was starting to look his way.

_I really don't need this right now._

Clark felt his heart start to race. The weight of everyone's eyes pushed down on him, oppressive and choking. He lived and died by a simple philosophy.

_Don't stand out._

In a moment of carelessness, he had destroyed the carefully maintained shield of secrecy. Again.

Clark clenched his hand into a fist. No, this wasn't beyond salvaging yet. He wasn't going to let his fears chase him out of another town without putting up a fight. He wouldn't let the events of Smallville repeat themselves here.

 _Besides, all I did was create a very detailed sketch in-_ Clark's eyes glanced to the wall mounted clock- _holy crap, ten minutes?_

He'd effectively blacked out for ten minutes, lost all autonomy. As someone who was defined by his need to control himself, it was Clark's worst nightmare. For those ten minutes, the _Alien_ had been behind the wheel, and Clark never knew what _he_ would do.

_Still, while it's pretty impressive for a highschool freshman, it's not outside the realm of possibility. Much more believable than getting run over by a speeding car in front of a whole park's worth of people. I just need to do damage control._

"Really, I'm just as surprised as you," Clark continued. "I don't think I could do it again."

Students had started leaving their own stations and coming to take a look. That semi-circle of student bodies felt like heavy chains closing around Clark. He could feel his heart in his ears.

His carefully crafted camouflage was melting under their stares. They would see. They would see his face.

He heard some gasps and some murmurs from the crowd. Many were impressed, some were envious, resentful. Mr. Manson seemed to notice Clark squirming.

"Okay, everyone back to your stations. You've still got five minutes left."

At the sound of authority, the students milled back to their places, but Clark could hear them all whispering among themselves. Not an effective tactic against him. He could make out every conversation with clarity.

Part of his true face had been revealed. He'd been outed as a freak. Still, if he had to be a freak, "secret art prodigy" would probably go over better than "superpowered alien".

The rest of the class came and went, Clark gave it the minimum of attention it required. The rest of his brain was busy freaking out, running an endless series of paranoid scenarios and preparing contingency after contingency for an imagined mob of townsfolk, pitchforks and torches a-waving.

Without noticing, he'd pushed the memory of death into the back of his mind.

When the bell rang and ended the class, Clark nearly leapt for his canvas. His fingers were centimeters away when-

"One moment, Clark."

Clark turned woodenly to see Mr. Manson waving him over to his desk. Trying to keep his face friendly, Clark walked over.

"Yes, sir?"

"I was wondering, Clark, if you'd allow me to put your incredible sketch on display."

It felt like a lead weight had just dropped into Clark's stomach.

" _What?_ "

"Yes, I'd very much like to put it on the display wall. Perhaps even enter it in a competition or two."

Clark fought to keep his voice from cracking. "Oh, no….I appreciate that, Mr. Manson, but you really don't have too."

"Nonsense! Cultivating the talent of students is my _job_."

"Ah, well, I'm not exactly comfortable with that?"

"Well why on earth not?"

Clark rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just not. I try to keep a low profile, you know?"

"Ridiculous. Clark, you have a gift. Admittedly, I'm surprised. Normally I can spot talent instantly, but I missed yours. Talent like that is part of the wealth of the world! It must be shared."

_Christ, man, let it go!_

"Well, that's flattering, Mr. Manson, but I'd really rather not."

Mr. Manson stared at him evenly for a long time. Clark kept very still. He heard the voice of Sam Neil as _Jurassic Park's_ Alan Grant echo in his head.

" _Don't move. It can't see you if you don't move."_

Mr. Manson sighed. "Very well, Clark. It's a shame, but I guess I can't force you. At the very least, let me display it here in the class until the end of the day. You can pick it up after school."

_If it'll get you off my back._

Clark didn't particularly want to carry the canvas around either.

"Sure, but on one condition-"

"-name it.

"You can't tell _anyone_ that I'm the one who made it. Deal?"

When Mr. Manson opened his mouth, Clark knew it was to argue. Fortunately, his teacher seemed to think better of it.

He sighed again and shook his head. "Very well, Clark. In my opinion, it's still a terrible, terrible waste."

_Somehow, I'll just have to live with that._

"Thank you for understanding," Clark said as he walked out of the class. This was just not his day.

* * *

Dawn shuffled into Mr. Manson's art class. That quiz in math had taken it's toll on her poor mental state, and the post-lunch sleepiness was starting to set in.

_Really, quizzes should be illegal until at least a month has passed._

On the other hand, it was friday, so a good quarter of Mr. Manson's class would be taken up with the "Free Fifteen". Or, as Dawn liked to call it, "Vacant Doodling".

She walked around to her station and stared at the empty paper. She dropped her bag by her stool and popped open a box of colored pencils someone had left at her station. She lifted up a green, she was in a green sort of mood, and touched it to the paper. Then she stared.

And stared.

And stared.

And stared.

_Welp, looks like I'm feeling extra space-y today._

Dawn drew a line of green. Now there's a start…

_Now what._

Three more green lines later, Dawn admitted that she was feeling particularly uninspired. Still, while fifteen minutes of free form artwork would sound like the perfect chance to slack off, Mr. Manson took it way too super serious.

If she couldn't produce something that looked like at least ten minutes of continuous work… F is for friday.

Dawn looked around to her classmates at their easels, looking for inspiration.

It looked like Julie O'Brian had gotten her hair done in a pixie cut.

_Very nice, it doesn't make her look like a twelve year old boy at all._

Kelly Jacobs and Danny Nyko were making doe eyes at each other across the room.

_Hey, now there's an idea. I could puke all over the canvas and turn it in. Mr. Mansons would probably love it, I can hear him now, "Such raw, visceral emotion. A true regurgitation of the artist's internal world onto the page."_

Her eyes moved to Mike Estacado and stayed there. Stayed there until they misted over and she saw the two of them on a couch in a dark room, her fingers tangled in his dark hair, his face nuzzling against her neck as she gasped his na-

_Oops, bad train! Bad train! Jump out of the passenger car and hit the ground rolling._

Dawn peeled her eyes away and swept them around the front of the room again. Still nada. Dawn turned and looked toward the back of the class where Mr. Manson sometimes kept student projects. Dawn was no copycat, but maybe something there would inspire her.

She saw a really very pretty landscape that she was pretty sure was Sunnydale as seen from the hills.

She saw some kind of oil painting that appeared to just be a pear on a table. Very realistic though.

Her gaze swept to a sketched portrait of a woman. The pencil in her hand clattered to the ground. Dawn walked toward the sketch.

_No._

Someone said her name, but she didn't hear.

_It can't be._

She stopped a foot away from the sketch.

_It's impossible._

And yet, here it was. There was no mistaking the subject of the sketch. The details were too fine, almost impossibly so. Seen from a distance, it would have looked like a black and white photograph instead of a sketch. The woman in the portrait was definitely her dead sister.

_Buffy?_

Dawn's mouth became dry, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. She tried, but she could only manage quick, shallow breaths. It felt like powerful hands had closed around her throat. He heart was hammering, she felt it shake her whole body

The portrait's eyes seemed to bore right into her. She knew that look, Buffy in hunter-killer mode. A look of single minded, murderous determination. Many an evil thing had taken that face with them to hell as the last thing they ever saw.

Dawn couldn't feel her arms or legs. Her whole body felt far away. She heard something, a distant noise. Was someone trying to speak to her?

She couldn't hear. She couldn't see anything beyond the sketch. Her vision had tunneled, the edges becoming an indistinct blur. She still couldn't breathe.

She fell to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and everything turned black.

When her eyes opened again, she was staring at a glowing blob. A few seconds later, that blob resolved itself into a fluorescent light. It was a flourescent light on the ceiling. Dawn's eyes darted around. It was a flourescent light on the ceiling of Mr. Manson's art class.

She could hear murmurs coming from all around her. The faces of her classmates surrounding her peered down at her.

"Everyone stand back." A dark hand waved and the ring of faces dispersed.

Dawn tilted her head to the side to see Mr. Manson, kneeling next to her.

"Dawn, how are you feeling? Can you speak?"

Dawn swallowed. "Yeah, I think I'm okay."

She'd had a panic attack. She'd been getting them since her sister died, but it had been awhile since her last one. She'd hoped she was finally over it. It was hell, the irrational fear, the loss of control.

Dawn sat up with a little help from Mr. Manson. She glanced behind her.

Buffy stared back.

Dawn felt her grip on Mr. Manson's arm snap shut.

_What the hell?_

No panic attack this time, just waves of confusion gliding over a frothing sea of complex emotion. Dawn woodenly found her feet.

"I'm okay now," she managed. She forced herself to turn away from the sketch as Mr. Manson went about the usual round of concerned questions. Once he was satisfied she was okay, he let her go back to her station.

All around her, her classmates were whispering to one another and sliding glances her way. Dawn felt her face flush with humiliation. They all thought she was a freak now. It was only freshman year, but if she got labeled as "freaky fainting girl" now, she'd never shake it off.

Back in middle school when she'd started reading Poe and Lovecraft in an attempt to be impressively macabre, her sister had warned her she was going to wind up being labeled a freak. Mission accomplished.

Dawn kept her head down for the rest of the class. She missed the lesson entirely. She heard the words, but nothing stuck. Though she didn't turn around, her mind was in the back of the class with the sketch. She could feel it's eyes on her back.

There had to be a good explanation for it. One of her classmates must have seen Buffy somewhere, or maybe even the Buffybot...seen her and then recreated her perfectly from memory? Could that happen?

One thing was for sure, she had to find out who'd made that sketch.

When the class ended, Dawn snatched up her things and waited for all the other students to file out. She made her way to Mr. Manson's desk.

"Dawn, are you sure you're alright?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I think I'm just a little dehydrated. Haven't been drinking enough water, you know?"

"Well, Dawn, I think-"

"-hey, listen...can I ask you about that sketch back there?"

Mr. Manson's face morphed from concern to delight. "You certainly may. It's an exquisite piece is it not? A student in my first class made it just this morning. The level of detail that-"

"-yeah, it's uh...really amazing. Can I ask who made it?"

"Ah," Mr. Manson's expression lost its frenetic energy. "I'm afraid the student in question wanted to remain anonymous."

Dawn grit her teeth. She relaxed and tried to fake some mild curiosity.

"Really? But it's so amazing. They really didn't want anyone to know?"

"Yes, it's a shame. I myself argued about what a tremendous waste of an opportunity it was-"

_Clearly you didn't argue hard enough._

"-Still, this student seems the modest sort, uncomfortable with the limelight."

Dawn forced a bright smile. "Oh, come on, Mr. Mansons, I'm sure it's fine if you just tell me."

"I'm afraid I really can't. I must respect the student's wishes in this matter."

Dawn felt her smile slipping.

"C'mon, teach. I won't tell anyone else, and I just want to see this student and ask them a couple questions. You know, I really admired the technique they used and I wanted to ask-"

"-be that as it may, I will not give you this student's name. They made me promise not to. If it's help you need on an artistic project, I'd be more than happy to-"

Dawn's hand slammed on the desk. Mr. Manson jumped in his chair. He stared at her hand on the table then frowned at her.

 _Crap,_ Dawn thought. She'd lost control for a second. She thought quickly for a spin that would keep Mr. Manson from souring on her. She managed an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, I thought I saw a mosquito." She glanced at the clock. "Gosh, look at the time. Well, I'd better get to lunch."

Before he could respond, Dawn had rushed out of the room.

So, Mr. Manson was useless. Even so, no way someone making a sketch like that had gone unnoticed. She just had to find the kid's classmates, and they would lead her to this student.

Then she would learn what all this was really about.


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn had basically no interest in shop class, but it was a well known write-off among students. Old Mr. Smith had been teaching shop for basically his life and was clearly more done with it than anyone.

If you completed three projects, regardless of difficulty, 'A' for the year. He let you do whatever with the rest of your time so long as you didn't get too rowdy. This made it the perfect class to begin operation "Find Out Who Made that Sketch and Why", final title pending.

Dawn sat at her table next to her friend Janice. The class didn't have individual desks, just big group tables for four or so students.

"Whoah," Janice said, "what's with that face, Dawn?"

"My face?" Dawn felt her face with her hands. "What's wrong with my face?"

"You look…"

"Determined, focused, driven?"

"I was gonna say constipated, but sure, we can use one of those other ones. What's up? Something got you all twitchy-like?"

"Yeah, kinda." Dawn looked around. The class had split into it's usual cluster of chattering groups. The occasional wallflower had their nose in a book. One or two industrious individuals were actually working on shop projects. The smell of sawdust and the sound of powersaws covered most of the ambient conversation.

Towards the back, Noah Devlin was going through his usual gauntlet of challengers, chess set in front of him.

There wasn't much chance of being overheard, but Dawn leaned in anyway. "So hey, Janice, do you know anyone that has Mr. Manson's first class?"

"His first class? Uh...no, I don't think so. I mean, just going by numbers I'm sure I've got a classmate in one of my classes that has it but not anyone I know. Why?"

"Someone made a sketch this morning…" Dawn bit her lip. How _was_ she going to explain this?

"...okay. Someone made a sketch in an art class. And?"

"And I need to know who made it. Is that a crime?"

"Is it a crime? I doubt it, but it's definitely weird. Why do you need to know who made it?"

"I just...really like it. What's weird about that?"

Janice lifted a neat eyebrow. "Well, Dawn, you're not exactly known as artsy-gal. It must have been some sketch, huh?"

"Erm, yeah, kinda. Look, are you gonna help me or not?"

Janice crossed her arms and leveled a frosty gaze at Dawn. "Fine, if only because I've _got_ to see this sketch that's got you freaking out now. So, do _you_ know anyone in that class?"

Dawn shook her head. "If I did, why would I ask-"

"-Wait," Janice said, "didn't you _just_ have Mr. Manson's class?"

"Well, duh, that's where I saw the sketch."

"So why didn't you just ask him to tell-"

"-obviously that's the first thing I tried." Dawn flipped her hair over her shoulder. The memory of that totally unhelpful exchange was still annoying her. "He wouldn't tell me anything. To hear him talk about it you'd swear he'd been _sworn to secrecy_ or something."

"Really? Now that _is_ interesting." Janice leaned an elbow on the table and brought her hand up to her chin to begin stroking her imaginary beard of contemplation. "Very mysterious."

"Yeah, yeah, it's a regular brain-tickler. What should I do?"

Janice's eyes shifted to some point over Dawn's shoulder. Dawn didn't even turn around.

"Nope."

"Are you sure?" Janice's grin was mockingly innocent. "It'd be the fastest way to find out. She makes it her business to know everything about everyone."

"I would rather get _shot in the face_ , than ask Kirstie for help."

Janice shrugged, still grinning. "Hey, thought I'd get it out of the way. They say there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm."

"They're lying to you. That one was _so_ a bad idea. It is banned from all future brainstorms."

"I mean, the only other thing we can do is to just start asking random students if they know anything, but-"

"-great!" Dawn got up off her stool. "Much better idea. Let's do that now."

Dawn and Janice surfed from table to table, asking people about Mr. Manson's first class. No one knew anything. The closest they got was Mei Lin, who had a friend in that class, but hadn't heard anything.

At some point in the course of their investigation, Kirstie had apparently found out what they were up to.

_Probably by using her Alpha Bitch Super Hearing to eavesdrop on us._

Dawn could feel Kirstie's heavy gaze on the back of her head but she wouldn't give her the satisfaction of turning around.

"Mr. Manson's first class? I might know a little something about that."

Dawn perked up, twenty minutes of asking around and it looked like Jeremy Tate was her last hope. Jeremy was afflicted with an unfortunate case of babyface, and he didn't do himself any favors by keeping his hair incredibly short and wearing baggy clothes.

"You know someone that was in that class?" Dawn asked, leaning in.

"Do I?" He shrugged, smirking. "Maybe I do. If I maybe know something about it, I'm thinking it's worth a bit to you. I'm thinking you and me, Summers, maybe we meet after school to talk about it one-on-one."

Dawn threw her head back and groaned. "You _so_ don't know anything at all, do you?"

"Hey, the only way to find out is-"

"I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit," Dawn said as she stalked off.

Jeremy turned his sly grin to Janice. "Hey Janice, what abou-"

"-put on another fifty pounds of solid muscle and _maybe_ we'll talk." Janice twisted around and followed Dawn back to their table.

"Well," Dawn said, "talk about a total bust."

Janice turned her head and looked over to another table. "There's still one other person we could ask."

Dawn groaned. "Isn't there an easier way? Can't we just torture some people instead? This is the perfect class to do it in."

Dawn looked around at all the saws, drills, and vices in the class.

_Holy crap, this_ is _the best place to torture someone._

"Nah, we can't do that. Mr. Smith only has the two rules. Make at least three projects, and don't use school property to go full Spanish Inquisition on each other. It's fine if you bring stuff from home though."

"Ugh." Dawn swiveled in her stool to look at Kirstie, who was very nonchalantly examining her nails. Janice was right, though. If anyone knew who had sketched the portrait of Buffy, it would be Kirstie.

_And if she doesn't know, it'll only take half a second for one of her hive's little drones to beam the information into her brain._

"Fine," Dawn grumbled, "fine, I'll go. But you're coming with as backup-slash-bodyguard."

Janice blinked. "Am I guarding you or Kirstie?"

Without answering, Dawn got up and approached Kirstie's table.

"Kirstie," she said.

"Hm?" Kirstie looked up, feigning surprise. "Oh, Summers, I didn't even realize it was you. I thought some of the seniors had let a badly dressed ostrich roam around the school as their Senior Prank."

Dawn smiled over her gritted teeth. "Well, maybe you should get your eyes checked. They're probably super tired from being forced to stare at your reflection in every mirror you walk past."

"Hmm, well I could pull off the glasses look, no problem. I'm not sure what look _you're_ going for. Let me guess...is it anorexic palm tree?"

It was periodically necessary for Dawn to remind herself that while Kirstie might be a Queen B-Capital-B-for-Bee-yotch, she was not, in fact, heartless. After Dawn's mother had died earlier that year, Kirstie had pretty much left her alone. That is, until the start of the new school year.

But even all of Kirstie's horrible, awful...all of just everything was better than the pity party parade that would result if anyone knew that Buffy was dead too. So Dawn had to find out about this sketch. Even if it meant talking to Kirstie.

"Listen, Kirstie, I came here 'cause I needed to ask you about something."

Kirsty made a point of nonchalantly studying her nails again. "Oh?"

"Yes, I wanted to know if you-"

"-Knew anything about a rather spectacular sketch made by a student in Mr. Manson's first class this morning?" Kirstie turned and gave Dawn a sharp glance.

Dawn's mouth hung open.

"Well of course I know all about that. Kelly Driver, you know Kelly, she has that class and during lunch today she told me all about it. Quite a piece, she said."

"Well, did she say who made it!"

"Of course she did. She was pretty surprised too. Apparently no one knew this kid was secretly some kinda Van Gogh."

"Well? Who was it?"

"Oh," Kirstie's face became a mask of disinterest as she went back to examining her nails. "I'm not telling."

Dawn's voice came out as a small strangled sound from the back of her throat. Janice raised an eyebrow at her.

After several deep breaths, Dawn asked, "Why, Kirstie, won't you tell me who did it?"

"Well obviously I'm upset. I mean, you clearly know I know more than anyone here about what goes on in this school but I'm the last person you talked to? You talked to _Jeremy Tate_ before you talked to me, really? Frankly, I'm offended."

Dawn stared at her.

_How much trouble would I_ really _get in if I just punched her in the face, like really quick? Just like a lightning jab, how do they say it? "Pow! Right in the kisser!" I mean, sure, I'd go to the principle's office and maybe get suspended but...could be worth it._

"Kirstie," Dawn said, "what the hell do you want from me?"

"Wow, rude much? How about an apology?"

"An apology? Really."

"Yep. I want you to apologize to me."

"I think I'd rather ritualistically disembowel myself, samurai style _._ " Dawn turned to Janice. "Hey, wanna be my second?"

Janice looked at her, "What would I have to do?"

"Well, you just stand behind me with a sword while I cut my stomach open, then you behead me. Totally easy."

"Hmm, sounds messy. This is a new blouse."

Kirstie was still staring at her. Dawn sighed.

" _Fine._ I'm _sorry_ , Kirstie, that I hurt your...let's be generous and call them 'feelings', by talking to Jeremy Tate before you. Happy now?"

"What?" Kirstie seemed incredulous. "That's it? Don't you know the best apologies come with gifts?"

_If I pull all my teeth out instead, I wonder if Tara and Willow could use them for some kind of divination spell I can use to find the artist._

"What do you want, Kirstie?" Janice asked.

"Hey, it's a _gift_ , you guys are supposed to offer me something."

Dawn could see the delight in Kirstie's eyes as she led them around and around.

_If this girl thinks I'm licking her boots for this information she can shove it._

But the truth was, though Kirstie took to wielding leverage like the bastard love child of a thousand gangster movies, she didn't seem to really grasp exactly how important this actually was to Dawn. No one knew, and they never could, because they didn't know that Buffy was dead.

For years, Buffy Summers had been the only thing keeping Sunnydale from being a charnel house. The girl, it seemed, could die- not that Dawn had ever believed that until it happened- but the name had to stay. It was the only thing that kept the worst of the baddies away.

So Dawn had to go on everyday pretending like there wasn't a giant howling void in her chest where Buffy used to be. Which meant she needed Kirstie to talk, and she needed it to happen soon, before Dawn lost control and let the mask slip.

"Okay, fine, Kirstie. Here's the deal, you tell me, and I'll do one of your projects for this class."

Kirstie scoffed. "Oh please. I already plan to get some poor sap here to do _all_ my projects."

Dawn grinned. "Oh yeah, I'll bet any of these guys would trip all over themselves for a chance to do _you_ a favor. But I don't think any of them could get as excited about it as Jeremy Tate."

Kirstie's smug smile evaporated.

"Why," Dawn continued, "I bet'cha if I go over there right now and tell him, he'll be so _enthusiastic._ He'll probably start right away. And of course, he'll need to come by and ask you what you want him to do, and he'll present his hard work to you, and he'll have an excuse to hang arou-"

"-okay, enough, I get it. _So_ not cool, Summers. You will do one project."

"Deal, now spill."

Kirstie leaned back as she spoke. "What I hear is, during Manson's freeform or whatever, this guy takes up a sketch pencil, and the next thing anyone knows, his hand's flying across the canvas at, like, a thousand miles an hour. Kelly said she could practically smell the paper burning he was drawing so fast. When he was done, it was a portrait of a woman so realistic, it was like a photo."

"What was the guy's name?"

"Clark Kent. Get this, he's a new kid. He just moved to Sunnydale over the summer. He's from Kansas, a place called Smallville. No lie, _Smallville._ Can you believe that?"

_Just moved here?_

"Where can I find him?" Dawn asked.

Kirsty shrugged. "Well, even _I_ don't know some rando kids schedule by heart. Stalk much, Summers?"

Dawn gave her a dirty look. "Well do you at least know what he looks like?"

"Nope. We're done here, Summers. I gave you what you wanted, I expect payment in full."

" _Thank you,_ Kirstie. You've been just the _hugest_ help."

"Write that on the nice little set of coasters you're gonna make me."

Dawn rolled her eyes and walked back to her table.

If this Clark Kent really had moved to Sunnydale over the summer, then there was no way he could have known Buffy. Then how had he been able to recreate her face perfectly. Had he seen the Buffybot?

Or had he seen Buffy? This was Sunnydale after all. Was this kid having some kind of mystical encounter with her sister?

Dawn shook her head to clear it. She didn't know everything yet, but what she did know was that directly after school, it was off to find Clark Kent. But how?

_Mr. Manson said he asked to be anonymous. Guess he's not into the spotlight. What are the odds he comes back to pick up his picture after school._

If Dawn could get there first, she could catch him and get her answers.


	5. Chapter 5

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Kent."

_Well, even if you say that, you're the guidance counselor and you requested me. It's not like I could say no._

"No problem," Clark said. He shifted a little in the chair. At the beginning of his last class, he had been handed a paper telling him to report to Dr. Jones after school.

The walls were covered with motivational posters like kittens "hanging in there" and one that hung above a bookcase filled with psychology books and spiritual knicknacks that read "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars."

_Hah, been there, done that, landed here._

Clark noted two particular things on her desk. A picture of her in a graduation cap with an older caucasian couple, and the bronze plaque with her name.

'Dr. Elizabeth Xiaohua Jones'

"So," she said, "Clark- do you mind if I call you Clark?"

"That's fine."

"Excellent. So, Clark, I don't know if you knew this, but I'm new here."

"I did not know that. Recently graduated?"

"Yes, actually. So, anyway, I've been just calling all the freshmen in to just make sure we vibe. I saw in your file that you're actually new to town too, right?"

Clark shifted in his seat again. "Yes."

"Where from?"

"...it didn't tell you in my file?"

"Well, probably, but I didn't look too deeply into anyone's file. I don't want you to feel like I'm taking information you have entrusted me with yourself. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I suppose. I appreciate that."

Dr. Jones continued staring at him expectantly. Clark skimmed over the book titles over her shoulder. Some of these sounded like the new age-y, Jungian, psycho-spiritual stuff.

_Oh boy._

"So," Dr. Jones said, "how are you finding Sunnydale?"

_Weird superhuman encounters aside..._

"It's Fine."

Dr. Jones pursed her lips. "So you just got here over the summer, huh?"

"Yep."

"Must've been a bummer. You were probably looking forward to summer vacation, and then suddenly getting uprooted. Probably spent a whole lot of time packing, and then there's the actual move, and then there's the unpacking, and when it's all done you're still in some strange place where you don't know anyone. I'm betting that was hard for you, wasn't it?"

Clark shrugged.

Dr, Jones nodded and licked her lips.

She scribbled something on the notebook she had on the desk in front of her. The angle it was placed at prevented Clark from seeing what she wrote, but he traced the movement of the pencil's eraser.

She had simply doodled some lines.

"You know," she said, "I'm not from around here either."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'm an L.A. girl. To be honest, I wasn't too sure about coming out here. You know, small town vs big city and all of that. However, I've found that-"

_Sorry, Dr. Jones,_ CLark thought as she talked.

Clark knew what she was trying to do. The students of this year were pretty lucky. She seemed like someone who really cared a lot about her charges if she was going to all these lengths to try and bond with him.

He was sure she'd help a lot of them. Just not him. Still, if he let this just go on, he might never get home. She seemed the dogged type. He waited for a break in her monologue.

"You know, Dr. Jones," he said, "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I'm fine, really.

She sighed and buried her face in her hands. "I'm just the worst counselor ever."

"What? No way. I'm sure you're gonna help a lot of kids, and I'm sure there are a lot of kids here that need your help way more than I do."

"Well, thanks for that." She still slumped forward a little as she turned back to her computer screen.

Clark tapped his thumb on his armrest as his eyes darted up to the clock.

"Say," Dr. Jones said, "have you joined any clubs?"

The way she'd perked up with new vitality made Clark groan internally.

"Um, no, I haven't." He said.

"Well, you should think about it. I think joining some kind of after school activity will be a great way to help you acclimate. What are you interested in?"

"Well, I'm afraid I don't really have much time for after school stuff."

"Oh, why's that? Do you have a job?"

"Well...no, I've just got a lot of...chores."

She raised an elegant eyebrow. "Chores you can't start an hour later?"

"I...guess not." Clark didn't live on a farm anymore, that excuse just didn't fly like it used to.

"Come on, I know it sounds lame right now, right? 'Ugh, why would I want to be at school _longer_?' But trust me, we've got clubs for basically everything. Were you in any clubs back at your old school?"

"...no."

"No? What did you do after school? Hang out with your friends?"

Clark shrugged. "Not really. I usually just went home."

"Really?" The corners of her mouth turned down slightly. "What about on weekends?"

Clark shrugged again.

"Oh, come one, were you just in a vegetative state on weekends?"

"No. I mostly just, you know...stayed home. I'd read, or do chores."

_Go running._

Her frown deepened and Clark squirmed more in his seat. He felt her eyes prickling on his skin.

"Clark," she began. She stopped and looked into space. Then she bit her lip and said, "I don't really know how to- I mean...don't take this the wrong way or anything but...didn't you have any friends?"

Clark almost sprang up. " _What?_ Of course I had friends."

"I'm sorry, I said not to take it the wrong way."

"How am I supposed to take that? Of course I had friends."

Dr. Jones pursed her lips. "...What were their names?"

"Huh?"

"Your friends. What were their names?"

Clark's tapping on the armrest intensified. "Their names? Well, there's Pete Ross. He's been my friend for like, four years."

"...that's it? Pete Ross?"

"No, of course not." Clark looked away from her. Actually, wasn't there also… "there was this girl, Chloe Sullivan, who moved to my town about a year ago. She didn't know anyone and sort of...latched on to Pete and I. She's cool though."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No."

Dr. Jones nodded. "So...two people. You had two friends, and you'd only hang out with them...sometimes?"

Clark shrugged. "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

Dr. Jones twiddled the pencil in her fingers and looked away for a second. "No, look Clark, I'm not making any judgements or anything. But...didn't you ever get lonely?"

"...no."

Dr. jones leaned back into her chair. "Really? Never? You said you met Chloe last year, and Pete's been your friend for three years, so...since you were twelve."

"...yeah."

"Who did you play with when you were younger?"

Clark stared at her. His finger stopped tapping on the armrest. "I'm sorry, Dr. Jones, but I think you're maybe crossing a line, personal information-wise. Are you going to need to keep my much longer? I'd really like to get home."

She sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. That was kind of rude of me. Clark, I just want you to feel like you can-"

"-tell you anything?"

She smiled wryly. "Well, yes, that. Look, I remember what it was like, being your age and not feeling like you could talk to adults about anything but…"

Her eyes searched her desk. She reached out and touched the graduation picture. "So, if you couldn't guess from this, I'm adopted."

"Your dad was a minister?"

Dr. Jones' eyebrows scrunched up in surprise. "Yeah, how did you know?"

Clark reached up and touched his neck. In sympathetic response, Dr. Jones reached up and touched her own, feeling the chain on the crucifix that hung there.

She smiled. "Very perceptive."

"Well, you hear about that sort of thing. Ministers adopting Chinese children who were put up because of the One-child policy."

Dr. Jones nodded. "That's how it went. But listen, in addition to me, my parents already had six kids of their own. So I was one of seven. Because of my huge household, I was pretty much never alone. But at the same time, I was always an outsider in my own house. Everyone loved me, but that didn't make me _not_ different."

She steadily tapped the eraser end of her pen on her notebook. "I guess the point I'm trying to make is, I know what it feels like to be an outsider. To feel like you don't belong somewhere, or that you're different from everybody else. So if you ever need to talk to someone about anything…"

"I'll be sure to let you know."

Dr. Jones stared at him, then she sighed. "Well, I guess that's as far as I'm getting today. Just, promise me you'll think about what I said, about a club. It's a great way to find people who share your interests."

"I'll think about it…"

"Well, then I guess that's it."

Clark started to lift himself out of the chair but he stopped. His eyes went to the gleaming placard on her desk. "Actually, can I ask you one question?"

She perked up. "Sure, what is it?"

Clark nodded toward the plaque. "Did your parents give you your middle name?"

She grinned. "No, actually. I added that. My parents called me Elizabeth Jones, but a few years ago I went back to China to try and figure out where I'd come from. Turns out my birth mother named me Xiaohua. So, I made it my middle name."

Clark's brow knit together. "Why?"

"To remind myself of where I came from, I guess. I used to always fight that part of me, wish I was just like the rest of my family. Now though, it's a part of who I am."

"...what made you go after your past?"

She shrugged. "I guess it's just something that had been bothering me my whole life. I felt like if I didn't know where I came from, how could I know where I was going, you know? I just wanted answers in order to figure out who I was. Plus, I mean, I needed to know about any genetic medical stuff."

Clark stared at the portrait. The east asian girl with her beaming anglo-saxon parents.

"Did it?" Clark asked. "Tell you who you were, I mean."

"Well, it's not like some 'aha' moment, all the pieces falling into place or anything. But if I hadn't gone looking for answers, the questions would have just kept haunting me forever."

"I see." Clark stood up, said his goodbyes and left.

_If only it were that easy. At least Doctor Jones' biological parents still existed on Earth, in a country she could go and visit with no more trouble than getting some documents and sitting on a plane for a few hours._

_A club, huh?_

It was tempting. There were a lot of thing Clark loved. Joining a club might actually be pretty cool...

But he couldn't. The more time he spent with people, the more likely it was that they'd see through his camouflage.

In the end, a solitary life was best for him. If it was just his life he had to worry about, maybe he'd risk it. But what happened to him, happened to the Kents. He couldn't let something as selfish as the occasional pang of loneliness make him put them in danger.

Besides, he rarely ever felt lonely. He was fine by himself. People were fine, but so was a good book or five.

Clark headed towards the exit before stopping and remembering that he needed to go and fetch his sketch from Mr. Manson's class.

He sighed.

_What am I gonna do about that class? Mr. Manson is going to be expecting that kind of thing from now on. I need to find a way to get him off my back. I just hope that whole thing blows over sooner rather than later._


	6. Chapter 6

**_Remember, review are love!_ **

* * *

_I just hope I don't look too suspicious._

Dawn sat in the hallway. She wasn't directly outside Mr. Manson's classroom, but she was close enough to keep an eye on it, peeking out over her math textbook.

She'd rushed down at the sound of the final bell without telling Janice her plan. She was grateful for her friend's help, but this was personal. And possibly wandering into spooky territory, and as much as Dawn longed for it to be different, Janice had never shown anything to indicate she might be able to handle that part of Dawn's life.

Since she'd parked herself there, three male students had already walked past the classroom, and each time Dawn's heart spiked. This whole "stakeout" thing was a lot more stressful than it looked on tv.

No dice yet, and Dawn was going to need to pee soon.

Another student, tall, dark haired. He'd be pretty handsome if someone gave him a sense of style for christmas. Dawn watched him walk closer. His eyes swept up the hallway and found her.

Dawn tensed when she saw him slow. Had he noticed something? That couldn't be possible, right? She was just sitting here, there was no way he knew she was watching the hall.

He kept looking at her. Dawn felt her heart start to race as she looked down at her textbook, open to a random page.

_It's fine, stay cool. There's nothing suspicious about you. Perfectly normal girl sitting in a hall._

She sat and tried to think unsuspicious thoughts. She glanced back up in time to see him turn into the classroom. Could this be her guy?

She waited for him to come back out, he had a rolled up canvas in one hand.

_Gotcha!_

Dawn's plan was to watch him until he moved past her before following him. Unfortunately, he looked right at her when she was trying to sneak a peek. If your eyes meet for six seconds, it's probably safe to say you're officially on someone's radar.

Dawn ducked her head behind the book again. She grimaced. That was probably a bit much. She heard his footsteps on the linoleum.

_Just walk by me, just walk by me, just walk by me._

He stopped right in front of her.

_Crap._

She slowly lowered the book and looked up. He was glaring down at her.

"Hi," she said. "Can I, uh...help you?"

"Shouldn't that be my line? Why are you staring at me?"

"Staring? Who's staring? I'm not staring! I was just...doing some work. Then suddenly some _guy_ comes up all accuse-y saying I was staring at him like some creepo, like I was just out here waiting for you to come by or- er, what I mean is...hey, listen, I don't have to explain myself to you anyway...by the way, while I'm doing that, not explaining myself, what's your name?"

The boy's face seemed unsure whether it should continue to be menacing or confused so it got stuck halfway, failing to properly pull off either. "...Clark."

_Aha, target acquired!_

Dawn brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Oh yeah? That's neat. Clark. What is that, like English, right?"

"Probably." Clark's expression managed to return to its former menacing suspicion.

Dawn nodded, eyes drifting to the rolled up canvas. "Is that yours?"

Clark looked down at the canvas in his hand, then he looked back at Dawn. "Do you already know the answer to that question?"

Dawn felt her heart jump into her throat.

_How?_

"Uh...why would I know that? I mean, I don't know you."

"Do you know the answer, yes or no?"

"Hey, you're kinda freaking me out here." Dawn saw something change in the boy's eyes. She wasn't sure what, but she was pretty sure he knew she was lying.

"Why do you know about this, you weren't in the class. Have you been following me?"

"What? No way!"

Clark's eyes grew wide.

_Holy crap, am I really this bad at lying?_

"Are you working alone?" Clark demanded.

"I'm not working or anything!" Dawn started to look around, the hallway was empty. This time in the afternoon, who knew how long it would be before anyone came by, or if anyone was close enough to hear her scream. She wouldn't even be able to run away. Sitting down on the floor, him standing barely two feet away. She was trapped. Her only hope, if she needed to use it, would be the heavy textbook. Maybe a quick smack in the shin with it would buy her time to escape.

"Are you working alone, yes or no?"

"Hey, I think you should back up." Dawn had seen it again, something in his eyes changed as soon as he said the word "yes". Somehow, he knew she was alone.

_Holy crap, is he reading my mind or something?_

Which would be silly if this weren't Sunnydale. And there was something odd about the way he'd reword the questions, making them yes or no.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing," Dawn struggled to her feet, her legs were quaking.

_So not the time for that, dammit._

Clark's hand shot out to the wall at her side, blocking her off. The roll of canvas crumpled in his other hand. "Tell me!"

Dawn breaths were shaky, but she kept her face cold. If half a lifetime of getting kidnapped by pure evil things taught you anything, it's attitude under fire. "If you try anything, I'll scream."

Clar stared at her, then at his arm pinned to the wall. He pulled it back and stepped away, giving Dawn sweet breathing room. Clark crossed over to the other side of the hall, fingers dragging through his hair. He stopped and rested his head against the wall and Dawn could hear him breathing deeply.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. Please, go...just go."

Dawn looked down the long hallway, that was her chance.

"Wait," she said. "I need to ask you something."

He didn't turn around to face her. He didn't answer at all.

Dawn gulped to steady herself. "The woman that you drew, do you know who she is?"

Clark turned around. "Do you?"

_No,_ she almost said. "She's my sister."

"Your sister?" Clark's expression became contemplative. "Then are you…"

His gaze wandered over her, and Dawn shivered. There was something weird about it, peircing. She couldn't shake the feeling that with that one look he'd learned something important about her.

"No," he mumbled "you're just…"

"Please," Dawn said, " I have to know, did you see her?"

Clark nodded.

"When?"

"Last night. She...ran by my house."

"Last night? Was that the only time you saw her?"

"First and only. Why?"

Dawn's mouth went dry. The Buffybot had been busted all week. There was no chance it was the Buffybot. Which meant what? That Clark had seen her sister, had seen Buffy alive outside his house?

The night before?

Dawn ran for the bathroom.

"Hey, wait!"

She couldn't hear anything other than the hammering of her feet, and the hammering of her heart. She burst through the bathroom door and slid to a stop in front of a sink. She threw the cold water open and splashed her face again and again until she had calmed down.

She gripped the edges of the sink as she stared into the mirror. Was it possible? Was Buffy back? But if so, why? And why was she appearing by the house of some kid who'd just moved to town?

_Why didn't she come to me?_

If it was even her at all. Maybe she was back, but back wrong. A zombie, or a vampire. No, that was impossible...wasn't it? She'd been killed by some mystic portal. You couldn't get sired if you were already dead...right?

Or maybe it was none of those things, maybe some evil creature was going around looking like Buffy. But, if so, why?

The room started to spin. Dawn's breath came hard and fast. So did her lunch. She bent over the sink and vomited. When she was empty she splashed her face again and closed her eyes.

"Two," she whispered.

"Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three…" when she reached two-hundred and twenty-seven, the room stopped spinning.

Dawn stood back up and dabbed her face dry with rough paper towels. When she stepped back out of the bathroom, she saw Clark Kent leaning against the wall.

"Hey," he said as he stood up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah...I'll be fine."

If he could tell that was a lie, he was kind enough to not point it out.

"I'm sorry," he said, "about before."

"Oh, well, I guess we're actually kinda even. 'Cause I really was spying on you."

He smiled. "Yeah, I kinda figured."

"How could you tell anyway? I happen to know that I'm a great liar."

"Something to be proud of? Well, I'm just observant."

"Really? Is that all?"

"That's all, folks." The smile disappeared. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't have hurt you."

"Heh, now I'm the one who thinks _you're_ lying."

"I'm not lying."

"But you're not sure?"

He looked away, but didn't answer.

"Well," Dawn said, "I guess I should go."

"Wait." Clark looked back at her. "Can I ask you why me drawing a picture of your sister has you so freaked out?"

_Because she's dead,_ Dawn thought. _Been dead for months._

Dawn didn't see any change in Clark, so flash of insight or subtle shift in his eyes.

_Guess you're not a mind reader after all, just observant, like you said. Boy have I let this thing drive me nuts._

"You could ask," Dawn said, "but I can't really tell you, and we've learned there's no point in me trying to lie to you. So I'll just say some things are better off staying secret."

Clark bit his lower lip. "I suppose."

Dawn adjusted her bookbag. "Well I guess I should-"

"-hold on." Clark bent down and Dawn noticed something at his feet for the first time. It was her textbook. He picked it up and handed it to her.

"Oh my god," Dawn said, taking the book. "Thank you, these things are like, sixty bucks if you lose them."

She hadn't even realized she'd dropped it. It must have been when she started running.

"Yeah, I figured." Clark said. "You sure you'll be okay?"

"Hunky dory...your name."

"Hm?"

"You gave me your name, so...I guess it's only fair to tell you, I'm Dawn. Dawn Summers."

Clark nodded. "Clark Kent."

"...Guess I'll see you around."

"Guess so."

Dawn turned and walked away. No sooner had she left the hallway than her mind kicked back into gear.

That Clark had seen either Buffy or a Buffy double was undoubtable, based on the sketch. That's _if_ the kid was telling the truth. Even if he wasn't some kind of psychic, something was for sure off about him.

If he wasn't telling the truth, that meant he was hiding something and the only way to find out would be to investigate him.

If he _was_ telling the truth, then the Buffy he'd seen show up around his house was the only lead Dawn had.

Either way, the next move was the same. She had to have a closer look at Clark Kent.

_Sorry, Clark, but it looks like I'll be seeing you around a lot sooner than you think._


	7. Chapter 7

The phone rang once.

The phone rang twice.

Midway through the third ring, it picked up and an older woman with a bubbly voice spoke.

"Hi, this is Samantha Lowell of Lowell Real Estate, how can I help you?"

"Hi, Mrs. Lowell, it's Dawn...Dawn Summers."

"Dawn? Oh my goodness, how are you? Wait, don't tell me, are you guys thinking about selling the place?"

"Oh, no I-"

"-because let me tell you, I wouldn't be able to _take_ it. After what happened to Joyce, bless her soul, I'd want to sell my house immediately. I can get you an excel-"

"-We're _not_ trying to sell the house, Mrs. Lowell."

"Ah, I see, terribly sorry. I just get carried away. My job is my passion and all, you know? They say if you love your job-"

"-Mrs. Lowell-"

"-then you never work a day in your life. Have you found something you're passionate about yet, Dawn? I know young people like to wait 'till college to 'find themselves' but the sooner you-"

" _Mrs. Lowell._ "

"Oh, sorry, dear. What is it?"

"I was just wondering if you can help me out with something-"

"-Why of course, dearie! Anything you need, just name it!"

"...Well I found this textbook at school that belongs to another student. He seems to have lost it and I-"

"-Oh my. Terribly expensive things, textbooks, even for a _public_ school like yours. But at least in highschool they're given to you. When college comes around, watch out! Hahaha! I don't know if you remember, but my Richie got into Harvard. The bill for his books is always so-"

"-yes, I remember, Mrs. Lowell. Anyway, I was trying to see if I could maybe get this kid his book back, ya know?"

"That's very thoughtful of you, dearie. But what makes you think I can help?"

"Well I recognize the name in the book, Clark Kent. He just moved here over the summer, and since mom always said you were like, the biggest real estate agent in Sunnydale-"

"-bless her poor heart. Joyce was always _so_ sweet. Such a tragedy, what happened to her. I remember the first time I met her, showing her your house, and she _blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblahblah blah blahblah blahblahblahblahblah blah blah-_ "

"-right, yeah. I think I've heard that story. Fun Times. So, listen, I was wondering if maybe you sold them _their_ house, and if you could give me the address so I can bring it to him?"

"...oh...oh, my dear, I'm afraid not. While I did sell them their house, lovely couple, charming young man, their son, excellent manners...I can't just give away someone's address like that. Why don't you simply give him the book at school."

"Um...well, it's the weekend and...the textbook is for a class that we have together. Yes, and we have a quiz on monday, so he'll need it to study."

"Ah, I see...even so, I'm still not exactly comfortable giving you someone else's address. It's not exactly professional."

"...I see, thanks anyway, Mrs. Lowell."

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help you, dear. If there were anything else I could-"

"-actually, now that you mention it...I remembered earlier that sometime last year my mom bought this thing, it was like a juicer or something? I barely remember it, we hardly ever used it. It was like, some _expensive_ , top of the line craziness that totally looked like some elaborate torture device. But all high-tech and stuff. I was looking for it the other day and I can't seem to find it. I remember she loaned it to you, do you still have it?"

Silence on the line.

"Mrs. Lowell?"

"...um, no I'm afraid I don't have it. I gave it back a while ago."

"Really? Are you sure you don't still have it around."

"Yeah, I'm positive-"

"-cause I can't seem to find it, and I know my mom lent it to you for some picnic you were having-"

"-I'm sorry Dawn, I really need to go-"

"-oh, well do you mind if I come by your place and look for it?"

"Oh, no that really won't be necessary. I'll do that."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly trouble you. You and my mom were close, right? I'm sure it'll be fine-"

"-no, Dawn, really. I'll look for it. Tell you what, this whole thing where I couldn't help you is just breaking my heart. Let me give you the Kent's address and you can get that poor boy his textbook so he can study."

" _Thank you_ , Mrs. Lowell."

"Of course, sweetie. Anything for Joyce's little girl."

Mrs. Lowell gave her the address, and Dawn clicked the cordless off.

_Phase 1 complete,_ Dawn thought to herself, grinning in her room. It was obvious to her that she was some kind of evil genius.

_Phase two…_

Dawn looked down at her pink backpack. Her school stuff had been scooped out and dumped on her vanity. That backpack was now a "Sunnydale Survivalist Toolkit". All the classics were in there. Stakes, crosses, holy water, all things found naturally foraging in and around the Summer's house. With that, she should be ready for whatever might come after her that night while she kept an eye on Clark Kent's house.

Dawn bit her lip. Was this really a great idea? Normally, this was when she'd get Buffy. Buffy wasn't around…but if she were?

What would Buffy do?

_I've been watching episodes of 'Law and Order: Scooby Gang Unit' since I was a baby-child. I'm sure I can figure out what to do,_ she thought.

The first thing Buffy did was assemble the Scooby Gang, and start doing research.

That might not be the best idea. She remembered the cyclone of emotions that had only now started to die down in her.

If she went to the gang with this, and it turned out to be nothing…wouldn't they be crushed? Could she put their hearts through the ringer on some insane suspicion and the word of some kid who none of them knew and who had _just_ moved to Sunnydale?

And if it did turn out to be nothing, how would they ever forgive her?

Dawn's stomach was knotting itself with nerves at nothing more than the thought of their accusing, disapproving, disappointed stares.

Okay, so she couldn't go to them for help…but there wasn't anyone else she could go to.

Lisa? Melinda? Sharon? Janice?

As if.

All her other friends were muggles.

That just left her. But she'd watched Buffy and the gang before, despite their attempts to keep her out of it. She could do this. She had to prove that. To herself, maybe to others.

_Once I find out if it's legit or not, then I'll totally tell the Gang._

Dawn checked the contents of the bag for what seemed like the billionth time. Everything was still there, but was she forgetting anything?

_I'm probably just being paranoid._ Dawn zipped the bag back up and nodded.

_Phase two complete._

Time for phase three.

But phase three was a doosie. If she'd had more time to prepare, maybe she could have pretended to be spending the night at Janice's. She could've called Janice, asked for some cover. But there wasn't any time for that now. So she had no choice but to sneak out.

Night was falling, which meant soon the Scoobies would be going to one of their mysterious meetings that they'd been having since a few weeks after Buffy died. Which meant they'd be leaving her with Spike.

_So, how do you sneak off at night when your babysitter is a creature of darkness?_

Later that night, Spike finally made his appearance.

"Hello, 'bit." He swayed in through the front door.

"Hey."

"Did you do something new with your hair?"

"Nope, it just looks different through the beer goggles."

Spike managed to make his way to the couch. "Just give me a bit, I'll sober up right quick."

_You're fine like this too._

"Rough night?" Dawn asked, taking a seat on a recliner across from him.

He laughed. "Just crashed a wedding...well, call it a wedding. Bloody weird critters, the S'nths's demons. Most things bump uglies to make more little things, but not them. Used to be billions of them, I hear. Now there's barely a hundred. They merge together, see. Two literally becoming one."

"Really? That's weird. So, what happens when there's only one left?"

"According to them, that one will be the prophesied destroyer or some rubbish who'll plunge the world into eternal darkness. Nutters, the lot of them. But they can throw a _party_."

Dawn arched an eyebrow. "How do vampires get drunk anyway? Doesn't that require circulation."

Spike shrugged. "Do I look like Charles Bloody Darwin? I'm just glad we can."

Spike's eyes stumbled around the room, then stopped on the mantle over the fireplace. Dawn followed his line of sight. Right next to a plastic wrapped phone-book was a photo.

The frame was covered in seashells. Dawn had glued them there herself. It had been a birthday present for Buffy, and she hadn't wanted to bother with a real gift. The picture was the two of them on a beach, smiling brightly in the sun.

Dawn turned away. Spike stared at it, but Dawn could tell it was hurting him, like a burning coal in his eyes.

"Spike," she said.

"Hmm?"

"Get on up, come on. Let's go to the kitchen."

"Just a 'mo."

"Nope, c'mon, right now." Dawn got out of her seat and walked over. She grabbed spike by the arm and hauled him up. He kept turning to stare at the photo until they left the living room behind.

Dawn plopped him down on a stool in front of the island in the center of the kitchen. "I'd offer you something to eat, but…"

"No worries, luv. I'll be fine."

Dawn checked the clock that hung over the fridge. She wanted to get going as soon as she could, but Spike a) didn't sleep at night, and b) was kind of a mess.

That happened some times, but Dawn wasn't sure what he'd do if she just left him here. An idea stirred. Dawn had seen Spike get blackout drunk before. If she could get him to do it again, she could sneak out.

Her stomach knotted with guilt. That was kind of a low blow, taking advantage of Spike's pain like that.

_No, it'll be fine. I'll be back before he wakes up and he'll never even need to know. Besides, the state he's in, it'll probably be better for him if he spends the next few hours in coma-land._

She even almost sounded convincing.

"So," she said, "what do you wanna do? Poker?"

Spike shrugged, half slumped over. "Sure, why not?"

"But how about we make it interesting? I'm tired of playing for pennies. Let's make it a drinking game?"

Spike snorted. "Funny. No way am I letting you anywhere near the liquor, nibblet."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Well, duh. Obviously I can't drink _alcohol_."

"Oh, what, so it's just me getting all impaired like? Trying to fleece old Spike? Try again in another hundred years, pet."

"Well, no, I can't take shots or anything. But…" Dawn wandered over to the fridge , opened the door, and looked through it.

_Aha, that'll do._

She pulled the small yellow bottle out of the fridge, wandered back over to the table and plopped it down in front of Spike.

He snatched it up and squinted at the label. "Pure Pressed Lemon Juice? Really?"

"Yup."

Spike chuckled and sat up. "Fine then, little 'bit wants to act all woman-like. It'll be worth it just to see your face."

Dawn went and got him a bottle of some dark amber liquor. Dawn didn't know what it was, but it was basically untouched. The only person she'd ever seen drink it was Giles sometimes.

"That's 'coz the kiddies can't handle anything harder than beer unless it's also glowing like bloody neon signs and ninety percent fruity candy bollocks." or so Spike told her.

Dawn lost the first hand, so she poured the lemon juice into the shot glass Willow and Tara thought they kept "hidden" in the back of the cupboard.

Dawn tossed the glass back and immediately her face twisted and spasmed as she coughed.

"Bleghh."

_This was a terrible idea._

They kept playing. It wasn't long before Dawn couldn't take it and had to start washing her shots down with water.

"You're gonna hafta piss like the bloody Niagara in a few."

"Thanks, Spike, real classy. And _I'll_ be fine. You look like you're about to drop."

Spike snorted. "Please, the night Spike get's drunkeneded under a table by some little girl is the night that...some other unlikely thing also happens. Even though you ain't drinking...I'll _still_ wreck you."

Dawn snorted. "We'll just see about that."

Spike lost another hand and his fingers closed around his glass. He stared deeply into the liquid amber gem shimmering by the fluorescent kitchen light above them.

"I'm failing." He said.

Dawn looked up from her cards. "What?"

"I'm failing her... _again_. I promised. She made me promise...I said I'd look after you, keep you safe. I didn't, I couldn't and she-" Spike's eyes squeezed shut as he choked on his words.

Dawn couldn't look at him.

"And now," he continued, "and now I'm doing it again. I'm supposed to be looking after you, but here I am, getting lit. Getting into fights every night. I just don't know how long I can go on. The air in the world is stale and bitter since she left it. Only reason I'm still here is, even if I ended it, I still wouldn't be with her."

Dawn felt her throat tighten as she stared at the tiles on the tabletop. She blinked, her eyes were getting hot and wet. She grit her teeth.

So, there it was then. She had always guessed, but had never been sure. Given the chance, Spike would leave her behind in a heartbeat to go after Buffy. Maybe that was just to be expected. Dawn tried not to take it personally.

_If I thought there was a chance to see her, I might leave them all behind too._

"I hope she's in hell." Spike tossed his drink back and slammed the glass on the table. "Maybe then I'd have a chance to be with her after all."

Dawn swallowed the rock in her throat. "I like you this way."

Spike snorted. "Like 'em drunk and half drooling, do you? You Summers girls always did have bloody awful taste in men."

Dawn lifted her head and stared at him. "No, I'm being serious. You're definitely a wreck, Spike, but at least you're not pretending."

Spike looked up at her. "How do you mean?"

Dawn shrugged and looked away, feeling suddenly tired. "I don't know...it's just, Xander is 'Mr. Work' all the time. He doesn't mention Buffy much. Him and Anya always talk about adult stuff- bills, rent, being a part of the Scooby-gang and going on patrol for goblins, gremlins, and ghouls, _oh my_.

"Willow and Tara, I love them, but they're always all glowy around each other and me, pretending they're _My Two Moms_ or something. Making me pancakes every day like everything's fine.

"Giles has his whole British, 'stiff upper lip thing going. Running the Magic Box, doing Watcher stuff. I don't know."

_No one particularly minds when I'm not around either._

They were always nice to her, but Dawn had been Buffy's shadow her entire life. Maybe now the image of this lone shadow, all it did was conjure painful memories of the woman who cast it.

Did they blame her? Blame her for being here when Buffy was not? Blame her for causing Buffy's death?

Probably, on some level. Dawn certainly did.

"It just feels like...like _Buffy died_ , and everyone just went on with their lives. Sometimes I think you and I are the only people who _care she's gone_."

"Rubbish," Spike said. "Everybody's feeling it. They're just trying to be strong."

"I know," Dawn said. "I _know_ , but...this can't be good, Spike. This whole 'nothing's changed' front is _not_ good. It _is_ a front. Buffy was the center of all of us, and it's like...with her gone, none of us know who we're supposed to be. So we're all trying to be Buffy. You and everyone else going out to slay…"

_Me, stalking some kid who just moved here._

"It'll be fine, pet. The others will get past it."

"The others huh? But not us."

"Not me...but you'll get past it too."

"I don't _want_ to get past it. I don't want to get past _Buffy._ "

Spike tried to speak, but he didn't seem to have any words.

"Sorry," Dawn said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Let's just keep playing, okay?"

"Sure thing."

As they played, Dawn thought.

_What if I just told him? I could get him to come along. That'd be safer than going myself. And if Buffy_ is _back, no one else would want to know more than him._

But despite what she'd said, Spike was right. He _was_ a wreck. If she told him, got his hopes up, and it turned out to be nothing...she didn't think he'd survive losing Buffy a second time.

They played a few more hands and Spike finally fell asleep leaning on the table. Dawn got up and got a thick blanket.

She came back to the table and stared at his face for a moment. The corner of his eye was glistening.

Dawn reached out and took his hand, holding it.

It was cold. Of course it was cold.

She let go and threw the blanket over him. She'd be back before sunrise and she'd wake him up.

Dawn splashed herself with cold water to wake up and fetched her kit.

Without Buffy, her whole family was going to shake itself apart, Dawn was sure. And who better to be Buffy than her, the sister?

Dawn gathered her resolution and set off into the night. Onward to Clark Kent's house.


	8. Chapter 8

Clark's fingers flew across his keyboard like scuttling spiders. His laptop was a personal creation, the product of years of saving chore money. A slick, black thing that when closed reminded him of the Monolith from _2001: A Space Odyssey._

Dawn Summers.

He had a name and a connection, however, the girl that had accosted him in the hallway had been, near as he could tell, a regular human.

However, Clark had never met anyone else who _wasn't_ human, so would he really be able to tell? Clark's hands stopped and he peered at them. He would never mistake them for human hands.

Everything physical in the universe, as far as the people of planet Earth could tell, interacted with light. When light strikes an object, some frequencies are absorbed, some are reflected, some are transmitted through the material, and some are emitted.

No two materials appeared to do these things in exactly the same way. The human eye could only detect three wavelengths of light, and used those three wavelengths to create all the colors and hues humans can see.

Clark couldn't know an exact number, but he suspected his own eyes could see in several hundred, and possibly even several thousand wavelengths.

This let him pick up on tiny differences and details totally overlooked by human eyes. A human might pick up a rock and see a rock.

Clark could pick up that same rock and see clearly the contrast of minerals that run through its skin, see how it differs from the other rocks around it, even tell what else had touched it.

In theory at least, but these millions on millions of additional hues were totally unknown to humans, visible only to some of their most powerful imaging technologies. Clark didn't have anyone to teach him what they all meant, so he was learning on his own.

But he knew his own hands pretty well. There were too many differences in the way they reflected and emitted light compared to a human's. Dawn Summers on the other hand, had seemed fairly typical.

The woman he'd seen outside his house, she'd seemed off too, but Clark couldn't be sure what that meant.

Clark's hands resumed typing.

Clark had arrived on the planet Earth cloaked in a meteor shower.

_Was that a coincidence, or was it by design?_

So the first things Clark started looking for were strange astronomical events in the area. He found an incident that happened the year before. Several people in town reported seeing a large meteor in the sky. However, no meteor or crash site was found. The event also coincided with the death of several people suffering psychological issues, but Clark didn't know if there was a connection.

As a lead, it didn't sound promising. So Clark moved on.

_There was definitely something about this Dawn Summers girl. She was freaked out. There's more to the situation than she said._

So she was his next stop. He looked her up, narrowing results until he thought he had his girl. An article from a local Sunnydale paper. Clark opened it up.

It was about an elementary school chess championship hosted about five years ago. He found a picture of a little brunette girl, grinning widely with a trophy in hand. Behind her a woman with long blonde hair held on to her shoulders, enveloping her in a warm, loving glow. Next to that woman…

_The woman I saw outside my house._

The picture was captioned.

**Pictured: 1st place winner, Dawn Summers with mother Joyce Summers and sister Buffy Summers.**

Clark quickly read through the article. It mentioned that it was Dawn's first year in Sunnydale, she'd moved here from Los Angeles.

Clark ran another search for Buffy Summers. An unusual name, there probably wouldn't be many false leads.

Even so, he couldn't find much. She had apparently been charged with arson, setting her high school gym on fire her freshman year, a year before her move to Sunnydale. A bit more poking around revealed to Clark that she'd been institutionalized.

Clark frowned. That meant hospital records. Which meant she had to be human, right? Clark could never be admitted to a hospital, all of his own medical papers were forged because a hospital would realize what he was in a heartbeat.

Maybe a psychiatric institution hadn't done an extensive physical examination, but Clark doubted it.

Which meant she had to be human...

_Or that she could pose as one well enough to fool modern medicine._

Clark blinked and rested his face in his hands. There was that good old paranoia. Was he trying too hard to make the evidence fit his theory? His desires?

Clark noticed his left hand trembling. He pulled away from the computer and stared hard at it, willing it to stop.

His whole body felt like a hornet's nest, every cell buzzing with unspent energy he could practically hear.

Clark was worried that if he didn't let it out soon, that energy was going to find its own way into the world.

He waited until the tremors stopped before going back to the computer.

Clark looked up the mother just in case. Divorced, had owned a local gallery, died several months ago from complications after surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Clark slammed the laptop shut, wincing at his own carelessness.

_Now who's the spying jerk?_

Clark remembered the girl, her terrified expression when he'd…

He couldn't even imagine a world without both of his parents. Clark took a deep breath. It was time to let this go. Whatever this was, it was looking like it didn't have any connection to him, it wasn't any of his business.

_Maybe I'll just never know. Maybe I'll just go my whole life never answering these questions about what I am, where I come from._

Clark pushed his rolling chair away from his desk and stood up, stretching. He looked out of his window, down onto the street. He could remember clearly the image of the woman shooting by, easily at seventy or eighty miles an hour.

Movement from across the street caught his eye. Clark focused and he could see a figure moving across the Patterson's lawn across the street.

Actually, not just any figure. It was Dawn Summers. Even in the darkness Clark's eyes easily made her out.

_What the heck?_

She was wearing all black, excepting the pink backpack.

_Seriously, what the heck?_

He watched her as she stopped in front of the tree house Tom Patterson had built for his daughter Jane. She climbed up the ladder, really a series of boards nailed to the tree, and crammed herself into the little wooden box.

An intuitive suspicion made Clark duck down. He stayed low and made his way to the window. He peaked out over the window sill.

Through the little square window cut into the side of the treehouse, Dawn's head was hanging, her arms holding a pair of black binoculars up to her face, pointed directly at _his_ window.

Clark dropped back down again. Fortunately, his light was off. Chances were she couldn't see anything in his room. Either way, she was definitely watching him.

_What the hell?_

Clark felt an old panic start to uncoil itself inside him, hissing as it slithered up and down his spine.

_She knows something, she suspects. She saw what you really are when you lost control in front of her. She's dangerous, a threat. She'll reveal what you are to the world and then nowhere will be safe. Not for you, not for the Kents._

Clark took a steadying breath and shut the voice out. He didn't know what Dawn knew or what she was thinking. Even if she suspected something, she would only be here if she wanted to confirm. He still had a chance to find a way out of this.

The two silently watched. Dawn watched Clark's black window, and Clark watched her watching.

But another sudden movement drew his eye.

There was a man walking down the street. Something was odd about the way he moved. His movements were sinuous and smooth. Walking was the wrong word, he almost glided as if on ice.

Clark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Clark saw the man sniff the air. It made Clark think of a snake tasting the air with its tongue. The man turned and stared directly at Dawn's hiding place.

Clark looked back at Dawn, she hadn't noticed.

The man was walking toward the tree house.

_Yeah, that can't be good._

Clark ran to his door and threw it open. He raced to the stairs, hopped over them and hit the ground running for his front door.

He stopped abruptly, sliding from unspent momentum. Should he go?

_If I'm right, and this girl is trying to expose me...maybe I should just stay here. Maybe that guy will take care of it for me._

Clark had acted on his wish to save someone once before, and he had needed to run away from the only home he'd known. And the Kents, who'd lived there all their lives had been dragged along with him.

Maybe this was the lesson he needed to learn. Trying to help would only end badly for him.

He thought he heard a shriek coming from across the street, cut off abruptly.

_Damn it._

Clark burst out into the night in time to see Dawn being dragged off by the strange man, who moved startlingly fast.

_No!_

Clark ran after, still in his socks. Now that he was out in the world, he noticed more oddness about the man. Clark could see infrared light, the light of heat radiated by everything in existence. He could tell that the man was cold, colder than any living thing should be.

He couldn't tell this before because infrared radiation cannot pass through glass, and the window had been in his way.

_What is he?_

Whatever he was, he was fast, but not as fast as Clark. Clark saw the man jump the fence that led to the Patterson's back yard. Clark followed. He leapt over the fence in one bound. But when he landed, he saw the man had already crossed the yard and was hopping another fence, Dawn held under his arm like a potato sack.

Clark might be faster, but so long as the man avoided open spaces, Clark couldn't make full use of that speed. Not without plowing through walls and fences. Worse still, the man seemed to know his route already, giving him another edge on Clark.

_Dammit,_ Clark thought as the man started to pull ahead of him, fences and obstacles piling up in Clark's way.

* * *

Dawn wheezed as she was shaken like a baby rattle. Wherever this vampire was taking her, he didn't seem to care if his snack got a little bruised by the rough trip.

Too stupid. She'd let him sneak up on her. The ladder up to the treehouse had a loose board that squeaked when she had climbed up. She thought that would alert her.

She hadn't counted on the vampire simply jumping up into the tree house. She heard his landing, but by then it was too late. A quick blow had stunned her before she could reach the bottle of holy water by her side and he'd dragged her off.

_C'mon Dawn, focus._

But she could barely tell up from down as she was tossed around in the vampire's grip as he sprinted and lept through the neighborhood. Dawn had learned- from one of her many sessions spying on Giles' lectures to Buffy- that while lots of vampires would isolate a target and attack them there, some would snatch people up and drag them back to a lair to eat.

_As soon as he stops, I need to try and break free._

Despite being jangled up and down, despite the tremoring terror, Dawn bent her arm back and slowly reached for a side pocket of her backpack.

The vampire lept a gate into the Wilkins Memorial Park Cemetery.

Dawn worked a sports bottle out of the pocket.

Deeper into the cemetery, the vampire slowed down.

_Now!_

Dawn pulled the cap open and squeezed. A jet of holy water squirted into the vampire's face. The vampire screamed as the water sizzled and burned his skin like acid.

He threw Dawn away from him. She spun in the air, slamming into the grass with a thud, the wind rushing out of her.

_Get up! Get up! Get up!_

Dawn shakily pushed herself up until she could kneel. Where was the bottle? She looked up, her head whipped back and forth.

_There!_

She'd let go when the vampire had thrown her. It had rolled next to a grave between the two of them.

_Shit!_

The vampire was already recovering, pawing at his face, now contorted and monstrous. His brow had bunched together becoming pinched and narrow. His eyes had turned a pale yellow and his canine teeth had extended into large fangs.

The Vampire 'Game Face'. Their true demon self made manifest. He was now faster, stronger, and staring directly at her with ferocious, hate filled eyes.

Dawn quickly slipped her backpack off her shoulders, eyes darting between it and the vampire. She pulled the zipper open and reached inside.

The vampire started charging. It's legs swallowed the yards between them with supernatural speed. It dove into an attack, mouth wide and snarling, fangs glinting.

Dawn lashed out with her arm, screaming as she did.

She struck the vampire in the face, the wooden cross she'd pulled out of her bag in hand.

The vampire roared as it's flesh burned away where the cross touched it. It tried to turn away from the anathematic symbol, but it couldn't stop its own lunge in time. The vampire slammed into Dawn's side at an angle instead of pouncing directly onto her.

She was spun by the impact and knocked over. The scramble started immediately. Dawn tried to right herself so she could bring the cross between them, but the vampire was faster. He rolled onto her and pinned her by the wrist. She squirmed and writhed but his grip was like an iron vice.

The vampire roared at her, it's fetid breath of blood and decay blasting into her nostrils. Dawn gagged. Clearly this vampire wasn't big on personal hygiene.

But he was also a _guy_ vampire. Dawn swiftly brought her leg up into the vampire's groin. The vampire groaned and his grip loosened enough for Dawn to rotate her wrist and bring the cross in contact with his hand.

The vampire hissed and jerked his hand back. Dawn moved instantly, thrusting the cross into his face. The vampire pushed himself off her and scurried back. He jumped to his feet. Dawn scrambled to hers.

Dawn kept her eyes on the vamp as she stepped forward. She was next to her bag now. Keeping her eyes on him, she reached down into it and pulled out a stake.

Dawn took long breaths to try and calm her galloping heart. She licked her dry lips as she and the vampire slowly circled each other.

Then, a few more sidesteps and Dawn had the vampire where she wanted him. She charged forward, cross brandished in front of her. The vampire quickly stepped back, not knowing that in their circling before, Dawn had maneuvered him in front of a small grave plaque.

He backed up right into a slab of marble no taller than his ankles. He tripped and fell backwards onto the grass. He tried to push himself back up, but Dawn had already reached him.

The vampire immediately wrapped his arms around his head when she thrust the cross at his face and pinned him to the ground. She lifted the stake in her other hand.

_For Buffy._

She stabbed the stake down into the vampire's chest, yelling as she did. The pointed wood sank into the creature's flesh, about an inch away from the heart.

_Uh oh._

Dawn squeaked as she tried to work the stake back out again. The vampire's powerful leg swept up and caught her on the side.

Dawn cried out as the powerful blow sent her sprawling. She rolled when she hit the ground and sprang up as soon as she could, side throbbing.

The vampire was already there. She tried to get the cross up to defend herself, but he grabbed her around the wrist again.

She stabbed with the stake, but he caught her with his other arm.

He was grinning now, she was in a grapple with a creature of literally monstrous strength. She couldn't win.

She tried the old classic again, kicking out for his groin. His own leg quickly came up to intercept. All the while his powerful grip twisted on her arms. Dawn tried to fight back, but the pain became too much. With a whimper she was forced to drop her weapons.

The vampire was laughing at her now. "I think you've been reading too many comic books, girl. In the real world, the monster always wins,"

Dawn spat what little her dry mouth could muster right into the vampire's eye. The vampire snarled and slammed into her with a vicious headbut.

Dawn cried out in pain, her vision swam. The vampire drew in closer, down towards her neck.

That was it then. Game over in the first round. Dawn squeezed her eyes shut.

_I'm sorry, Buffy._

Dawn choked with shame. Shame...and a little relief. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe now she could see them, Buffy and Mom...maybe now she could finally rest. Maybe now she could put down this heavy box she'd been carrying with her everywhere she went, all day, every day, ever since her mother and sister had died.

" _Hey!"_ someone yelled. "Let her go!"


	9. Chapter 9

" _Hey!"_ Clark yelled. "Let her go!"

Dawn and the man both turned their heads.

"What in the hell?" the man said.

Clark was standing there a few yards away in his red t-shirt and gray sweatpants. His socks had been basically destroyed by the trip so he'd ditched them. He walked over the cool grass towards them.

Clark stopped and stared at the man's contorted face. He took in the pale yellow eyes, the pointed teeth, the cross Dawn had dropped on the floor.

"...you've _got_ to be kidding me."

The man laughed.

"Clark," Dawn shrieked, "get out of here, he's a-"

The man's hand lashed out and he smacked Dawn across the face. She fell to the ground.

"Hey!" Clark balled his fists and ran forward, slow enough for a human. When he got close the man whirled around, grinning widely. His fist shot out like a striking snake, aimed right at Clark's face.

Clark stopped hard and jerked back. The man's hook just barely whooshed past his face. Clark saw the man's grin dim. Another punch came, and Clark just barely avoided it. Another, and another. The man kept punching faster and faster, and Clark kept barely dodging it every time.

Clark brought his arms up in a guard he'd seen watching boxing matches on pay-per-view with his dad a few times. He caught the next blow on his arm, then he snapped out a counterattack. He felt Dawn's eyes on him.

_Control your strength. Hide it._

The punch was too slow, and the man ducked out of the way. Clark went back on defense and evasion. He saw another chance. He punched out, faster this time.

_Crack!_

Clark clearly heard the sound of the man's jaw cracking as he felt the bone shift and break under his fist .

The man, the _vampire_ fell to the ground.

"I would stay down." Clark said. Clark quickly looked to Dawn and saw she was back on her feet, rubbing her cheek and glaring at the suspected vampire.

Clark looked back at the man scrabbling to his feet. "So is this guy really a-"

"-yeah," Dawn said, "he's a vampire."

_Wow...that is just...different._

Clark heard something in the distance, the whine of a metal gate being pushed open. Clark stepped away, moving closer to Dawn. He focused his hearing in that direction and he heard rapid running feet headed their way.

_Now who could that be?_

There were at least three of them. Just going by Clark's luck, and how fast they were moving, they'd probably be more vampires. If they were all as strong and fast as the one Clark was fighting, he'd probably be fine. But the real question was, could he protect Dawn from four separate vampire attacks at the same time?

"So," Clark said as he got next to Dawn, "we should run."

Dawn had picked up a crucifix and-

_Is that a wooden stake?_

Clark heard her heartbeat rise, her hands tightened around her weapons.

"Run?" she scoffed. "I'm not gonna run. This jerk attacked me and dragged me all over the place like a frickin' rag doll. Plus, he's a _vamp_ , so I can't just let him get away. He's going down."

She lifted her stake up high and was set to charge when Clark grabbed her by the arm.

"Whoa, hold on, are you gonna _stab_ that guy?"

"Guy? Listen, Clark, that _guy_ is a blood-sucking, soulless fiend. Yeah, I totally _am_ gonna stab him."

Vampires were real. But what did that mean? They were monsters out of storybooks, shadows cast huddled around a campfire.

But there were plenty of people who would happily call Clark 'monster' too.

The vampire snarled at them. "It's not gonna matter in a second."

At that moment, three other people ran onto the scene. Clark could tell they were also vampires, cold as the first. His guess had been right.

"So," Clark asked, not taking his eyes off the vampires, "how about running away now?"

"We'd never make it," Dawn said. Then she gave him a look out of the corner of her eye. "I wouldn't make it, anyway."

_And I can't carry her off,_ Clark thought, _if they all move as fast as that last guy, the speed I'd need to escape them...there's a good chance I'd seriously hurt her._

Without saying anything, Clark and Dawn both started to back up in unison. The vampires advanced, slowly fanning out to block off their escape.

Clark was reminded of a documentary he'd seen of a wolf pack hunting.

As they backed up, Dawn tripped on something and stumbled, but Clark caught her before she could fall. She looked down and saw her backpack. She snatched it up and kept backing up.

Clark looked over his shoulder. He brought his voice down to a whisper "So, about vampires…"

"Stakes, holy water, crosses, sunlight," Dawn said.

"Huh. There's a big mausoleum behind us. Clear path over even ground. Heavy doors. If we can get there, we can probably barricade ourselves in 'till sunrise."

"How far away?"

"Maybe a hundred feet."

Dawn nodded. "We might be able to make it. If we run... _now_!"

They both turned and started sprinting, Clark made sure he was a little bit behind her.

Clark heard the vampires break into a run as well.

"Don't look back," Clark yelled, "just keep running."

Dawn angled forward and pushed herself as fast as she could go.

_Just don't look back,_ Clark thought.

The first vampire was faster than the others, and he was gaining on them. Clark slowed down suddenly and dropped to his knees. The vampire didn't have time to slow down and started to pass him.

When they were right next to each other, Clark's fist shot out and smashed into the vampire's knee, buckling it and causing the leg to bend at an unnatural angle.

The vampire cried out as it toppled to the ground and rolled. Clark sprang back up, two other vampires had shot past him during that maneuver and were now only feet away from catching Dawn.

They stretched their hands out, each one reaching for an arm. Suddenly, something tackled them from behind. They struggled to get up, but something grabbed them by their necks and they were thrown into the air where they crashed into a nearby tree had enough to shake leaves loose.

The fourth vampire slowed to a stop and looked at Clark, who had just tossed his two companions and was now glaring him down. The vampire turned and ran in the other direction, passing by his moaning friend on the floor with the broken leg who reached out for help.

The vampire only paused long enough to kick his friend's hand away before continuing to flee.

When the two vampires who went flying recovered enough to stand up, they also took careful stock of the situation, and fled in opposite directions.

With his backup abandoning him, the first vampire struggled to one leg, and hopped off into the night.

Dawn reached the mausoleum door huffing and puffing. Her legs and her lungs burned. She quickly turned around, cross up to protect herself form the vampires she was _sure_ would be on her tail.

All she saw was Clark standing about fifty feet away. He jogged over to her.

"Where the hell are the vamps?"

Clark shrugged. "They just ran off."

"What?"

"Yeah, maybe they know it'll be daylight soon?"

"Not for like, four or five hours."

"Hm...maybe they decided we just weren't worth the trouble. With our crosses, and our stakes, and stuff?"

Dawn carefully scanned the horizon, breaths heavy. Not a vampire in sight. She turned back to Clark.

"So…" Dawn crossed her arms " _you're_ not human."

Clark became totally still.

Four words to end his world.

"What?" he said. "Of course, I'm human."

Dawn scoffed. "Nuh-uh. You're _so totally not!_ First off, if you were human, how could you follow us here? Second, that vamp couldn't even touch you. Then I turn around and suddenly _four_ vampires ran off for no reason? What do I look like?"

Clark's head felt strange, it was growing hot. His right hand started to tremble. He hid it in his pocket. "I think you're maybe still freaked out over what just happened."

"What, some vamps? That was nothing, I've been dealing with vamps since I was like nine. I totally had that handled."

The first part was true, but the second had been a lie, Clark heard the shift in the pitch of her voice, the change in her breath, the jump in her heartbeat.

A thousand little things he could use to sense deception.

A girl who deals regularly with vampires. Why not? It was that kind of day.

"I don't know what you're going on about," Clark said "but I'm definitely human."

His left hand started to shake. It vanished into his other pocket.

He blinked. Something was wrong. Wrong with his eyes. His vision was swimming with these little red dots.

"Nu-uh," Dawn said, "try another. No way four vamps give up on two kids just because they've got some knick-knacks. Something's up with you. You're either not human, or you've got some kind of super-schtick."

Clark's eyes were burning. There was this huge pressure, like something was trying to burst out of them.

Clark turned away so she wouldn't see him clench his eyes shut. Something new was happening. Something strange, something Alien.

And at the worst possible time. He had to get away.

"Listen," he said, "I don't know what your deal is, but clearly you're insane. I'm going home, I'm going to sleep, good luck with your crazy theories."

Clark walked away as quickly as he dared, eyes still shut. He made his way to another crypt and ducked behind it.

He leaned his back against the heavy iron door and sank to the ground.

_It hurts!_

Clark let out a small groan as his eyes continued to burn. He clapped his hands to his face.

The heat continued to rise. Each time Clark thought that was it, it couldn't possibly burn more. He was immediately wrong every time.

_What's happening to me?_

In desperation, Clark pressed his fingernails into his face around his eyes and he pushed them in with all his strength. Then ten pricks dulled the burning pain a little.

Clark heard a strange, harsh noise. He was grinding his own teeth.

Clark tried to think cold thoughts. He imagined pouring a pitcher of ice water into his eyes. He could see the water flashing into steam as soon as it touched.

The burning lessened a little.

Clark slammed a fist into the iron door behind him. He heard the metal dent under the impact.

Clark winced. So much for letting the dead rest in peace.

"Three," he whispered, "point one four one five nine two six…"

The burning and the pressure ebbed away. The red dots that had swarmed his vision dispersed.

_What was that?_

Clark didn't know.

He ran a hand through his hair. Whatever had been about to happen, it appeared to have been stopped. For now…

_But what about the next time?_

Sometimes it felt like the Alien was actively working against him, like it was purposely trying to break his carefully maintained camouflage.

The sketch incident had keyed Dawn Summers in to his existence. If it hadn't been for that, neither of them would be out here. He would need to do something about that.

_She suspects you're not human. But then, apparently she deals with a lot of vampires, who it turns out, exist. Maybe she's now convinced you're some kind of monster and she's going to go round up the angry mob. Sunnydale may not be a farm town, but I'm sure the hardware store has a few pitchforks. Maybe a torch or two._

With Clark's powerful senses, she'd be hard pressed to get the jump on him. But if she did, it's not like it'd be impossible to prove. If she got close enough to stab him with a knife, he wouldn't be cut.

_And besides, all it would really need is someone taking a close enough look at my paperwork before some strange things probably started arising. Worse still, if she calls around Smallville and finds out about all of_ that _insanity…_

He might have to leave Sunnydale after all.

_This has really just been the shittiest of shity fridays._

Technically he supposed it was saturday now.

_There was the sketch thing, the counsellor thing, the Dawn thing...twice now. Also_ vampires _apparently exist? I should maybe have gotten more information on that before losing my_ goddamn _mind._

_Shit._

Clark spent the next however long just thinking an incredibly long string of increasingly obscure and inventive profanity directed at nothing in particular. Once done, he felt both satisfied and guilty.

" _Cussing is for the ignorant,"_ his father had always told him. _"It's for people who don't know the words to express themselves properly."_

Maybe so. But sometimes it sure felt good.

Clark heard footsteps. Perfect. Really, just perfect. He hadn't been paying attention, and now here she was again.

She came around the corner of the crypt. Clark didn't get up. He didn't want to deal with this right now. He just wanted her to leave.

She walked next to him and stopped. Her feet kept shuffling, and she was jittery.

Clark pointedly ignored her. She slid down next to him.

"Look," she said, "I'm sorry, okay?"

Clark turned. "So you realize that you were being crazy?"

"Hm? Oh, no, you're totally not normal, but...I didn't mean to…"

Clark turned away again.

Dawn sighed and scratched her head. "I'm saying this all wrong. Listen, my sister was the Slayer."

Her pause told Clark that she expected that to be significant to him, but…

"The what?"

"The Vampire Slayer…"

"Like you?"

Dawn snorted. "No, not like me. Okay then. Um, she was like this girl who was endowed with mystical powers- you know, super-strength, super-speed, super-healing, yadda, yadda- so that she could fight vampires and demons and stuff-"

"-wait, _demons_?"

Dawn frowned. "Huh, I guess you're really not in the know. Yeah, demons are real. And Buffy was the one girl in all the world who had to fight them. She's supposed to keep it a secret too, which she sucked at, but…"

Dawn looked out over the cemetery. "But I remember what it was like. The secrets, and the lies. She'd sneak out at all hours of the night, come back hurt sometimes. She always made me swear never to tell mom or dad after I...well, whatever."

Dawn tugged at a loose thread hanging from her sleeve. "The secret got out, eventually. But I remember what it was like for her before. So, what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry I didn't think about that maybe being your case."

Clark didn't say anything, he didn't trust himself to speak. This whole conversation seemed like an impossible dream.

"And thanks, too...for saving me."

Clark barely breathed. His lifelong armor of camouflage had never felt so brittle. He felt like one word, one breath either to confirm or deny would shatter it forever.

So he sat, still as the headstones.

" _Thank you,"_ Dawn repeated, but not to him. "Ya know, I think that's the first time I've said that? Years of getting rescued, and I've never said 'thank you'. What does that say about me? It was mostly her, mostly my sister Buffy doing the rescuing. And being grateful to your big sister, well saying it out loud anyway, is just _so_ lame…"

Clark heard her heartbeat rise. He glanced at her and saw her blinking moist eyes.

"I think I only ever thanked her once. I wish I had told her more."

Clark's eyes grew wide. Without thinking he said, "she's dead…"

Clark heard Dawn's heart start racing. She whirled to face him, drew a quick, startled breath . They stared at each other and Dawn smiled bitterly before turning away.

"Yeah," she said, "she's dead. She died a few months ago. But here's the thing, right? _No one knows_. No one's supposed to anyway. God, what is wrong with me today? I am just the spaz of spazzes."

Dawn pinched her eyes shut and rubbed them. "See, the thing about Sunnydale is that it's this thing called a Hellmouth. All sorts of supernatural badness finds its way here. Buffy was the only thing keeping them at bay. If they found out she was dead, things'd get pretty crazy."

Dawn tucked a strand of long hair behind her ear. "And beyond that...my dad lives in Spain. He doesn't know either. If he found out, he'd probably take me away. Buffy's friends are basically my family now, but either he'd take me, or child services would. If anyone finds out about this, it's pretty much the end of my life."

Dawn turned and looked Clark in the eye. "You get me?"

_Oh, I do get you._

"I may know your big secret," Dawn said, "but now you know mine too…"

_Mutually assured destruction._

It was a cold sort of policy. But Clark would be lying if he said it didn't make him feel a bit better.

"That explains why you were so freaked," Clark said. A question answered, but another, darker one now loomed. "So, if your sister is dead, who did I see outside my house."

Dawn shrugged helplessly, a rueful smile on her face. "That's what I've been trying to find out. If it's her, or if it's something else pretending to be her. When we talked before, I could tell you were holding something back. I was kinda hoping it had something to do with her…"

Clark shook his head. "I don't know anything, sorry."

"Yeah, I guess not." Dawn leaned her head back against the crypt door.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Clark asked.

Dawn shrugged. "Keep looking, I guess. Sunnydale ain't so big. I'm sure I'll run into her eventually."

"...sorry, but that sounds crazy dangerous."

Dawn looked at him. "Oh, what the vampires? That was...I'll do fine next time. That first guy got the jump on me. Lucky shot."

So she said, but the end result would have been the same. Her death.

Clark carefully observed her shoelace. He wondered what he would do if one of his parent died. What he would do if he thought they had come back.

For a chance to see them again? He'd probably do anything. Even run around at night daring vampires.

There was no way Clark would be able to talk her out of it, and there was nothing he could do to help her.

_It's dangerous._

Clark's right thumb started twitching.

_And if tonight's anything to go by, it'll probably get violent._

His index finger started to spasm. He hid his hand behind his back.

_And it's certainly none of my business. It's personal for her, a family thing. I shouldn't go getting involved._

"Let me help," Clark said.

_God dammit._

Dawn's head snapped around to him, her eyes owl wide. "What?"

Clark sighed. In for a penny…"Let me help you investigate."

Dawn opened her mouth. She closed it. She opened it again. "Why?"

"Well, let me ask you, if I told you to stop, would you?"

"Hell no."

"There you go then. If you're gonna do it anyway, I'm thinking I might as well tag along."

Dawn looked away. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. It might even have been too quiet for a human to hear. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

"Good thing I volunteered then."

Dawn laughed. "You're a bit of a weirdo, ya know?"

"Yeah, but as per our agreement, you're not allowed to tell anyone."

Dawn laughed again. "Okay...and, thanks."

"Don't mention it. What should we do?"

Dawn thought in silence. "Well, how about we meet up tomorrow? I can give you some more background info, and then we can decide what to do exactly from there."

Clark nodded. "Sure, guess you'll be needing my number. How's your memory?"

"I can do one better." Dawn slipped off her backpack.

"By the way," Clark said, "the pink backpack at night is little-"

"-shush. Ah, here we go." Dawn pulled a black magic marker out of a side pocket. She reached for Clark's hand.

Clark jerked it back away from her fast as a whip.

Dawn froze, startled, staring.

"Sorry," Clark said. "Reflex. I, uh...I don't like to be touched."

"...sorry-"

"-no, I am, it's my...um, were you gonna write your number on my hand?"

"Well yeah but if you'd rather I not…"

Clark swallowed. "Yeah, sorry. Can you just recite it to me? Trust me when I say I'll remember."

Dawn nodded and told him her number. Clark gave her his and she scribbled it onto the inside of her forearm to be transcribed to paper when she got home.

They both got up and Clark insisted on walking Dawn home. She put up some token resistance, but soon they were walking through the night.

"So," Dawn said, "what's your deal, exactly? Half-demon? Mystically-powered human?"

"...I don't know." It seemed old habits died hard. Even so, it technically wasn't a lie. Clark didn't doubt his extraterrestrial nature, the sleek chrome dart of a spaceship that slept buried deep beneath the garden bed of their new house was proof of that.

But beyond that, he knew nothing. What his species was, where he came from, what he was doing here, all unknown.

But it was worth nothing that Dawn, for all her apparent ease and familiarity with the paranormal, had yet to mention the possibility of him being an alien.

_Maybe it's possible then that I am an oddity even among oddities._

"What do you mean you don't know?" Dawn asked.

Clark shrugged. "I was adopted, and I've been different for as long as I can remember."

"Huh."

They reached the house and said their goodbyes. Clark turned and left. It was a good thing he rarely slept. He had a lot to think about.

* * *

Dawn made the climb up to her bedroom window. All things considered, she was back earlier than predicted. She would just sneak back in and Spike would never need to know she was gone.

She pushed her window open.

She should probably try and get to sleep as soon as she could, but she wondered if she'd be able to.

She slid into her room and closed the window behind her.

She was still pretty keyed up, and she should probably think of her plan of action for tomorrow.

_Our plan of action._

Dawn turned away from the window and let her backpack slide to the floor.

There was a click as someone turned her light on.


	10. Chapter 10

Dawn froze, blinking in sudden blindness. Her eyes adjusted and she found Spike sitting on her bed. His hand was on her nightstand next to the lamp he had switched on.

_If looks could eviscerate…_

Dawn looked away, face flushed with shame. Her brain was scrambling for excuses she could use, but she could barely hear herself think over the pounding of her heart.

Spike simply stared at her.

"Spike-"

"What in the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

Dawn flinched.

"Do you have any idea how worried I've been? I wake up to find you _gone_! I was seconds away from bursting out of here when I see you _strolling_ up to the house like it's a bloody sunday afternoon. I was sure, I was so _sure_ that something had come in here and snatched you away, that you were bleeding out somewhere or getting eaten by some…gahh!"

Spike snatched up one of her pillows and threw it across the room. It smacked into her closet door with a dull thud and dropped to the ground.

"Spike, I'm so-"

"-don't you _dare_ say you're sorry! Don't you know that it's my job to protect you? Where the hell were you?"

"I was out with some friends."

"Oh, out were you? You and your mates traipsing about the bloody graveyard for kicks? Friends like that boy? Who the hell is he?"

_How did he know I was in a graveyard? Damn it, vampire sense of smell._

"He's just someone I know from school, nothing happened."

Spike scoffed. "You think I don't bloody know that? The boy's lucky I can tell he wasn't touching you or I'd be ripping his spine out through his throat."

The flint was struck. The tinders sparked.

Dawn scowled. "Spike, you're not my freaking dad-"

"-Damn right. I'm actually _here_ and a part of your damn life."

"People my age go out, Spike. It's what we _do._ "

"They don't sneak past their damn sitters at all hours of the night-"

"-uh, yeah they totally do."

"Not when they know they live on the damn _Hellmouth_ -"

"-well it's not like I could _tell you_. You would never have let me go out.-"

"-Of course I wouldn't have. You know better than anybody what goes on after dark. And here you are, lying to me."

Dawn swallowed. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, you've been _fighting_. You still reek of fear, adrenaline, and you've been rolling in the dirt too. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't fighting! We were just telling scary stories-"

"-scary stories? You must be joking."

"Really _good_ scary stories. In the cemetery…" Dawn winced. That was almost as bad an explanation as the truth.

"Exactly! In the _cemetery_!" Spike's eyes were wide and he started pacing, rms gesturing emphatically. "Well that's all bloody well and good then. You and your teenage friends, who have only one braincell to share between them, went to a graveyard in the middle of the night to tell _scary stories_. I'm astounded you came back at all."

_Yeah, when you put it like that, it does sound like the dumb teenagers that get killed in the beginning of every horror movie ever._

"I didn't just go off. I took precautions." Dawn slid her backpack off her shoulders and dumped it. Crosses, stakes, and bottles of holy water clattered to the floor. "See? I went armed…"

"Armed? _Armed?_ Thinks she's bloody bitty Buffy now does she? You're just a scrawny human girl, stake or no stake. You think a vampire is gonna have any trouble tearing you to-"

The embers were smoldering, deep inside her.

"-I wasn't alone! It was a bunch of us, and we all stuck together, strength in numbers. Besides, my friends wanted to go out and they were gonna do it with or without me, so I figured they'd be safer if someone who actually _knew_ about vampires was there."

Spike slammed a fist into the wall. A cloud of plaster kicked up as he punched right through it. Dawn flinched away.

"You think I give a crap about your friends? Let 'em all get cooked in a stew for all I care. _You're_ the one I was worried about. But here you are, showing me no respect. How am I supposed to keep you safe when you go running off-"

"-hey! It's not your _job_ to protect me. I don't _need_ anyone coddling me." The heat was in her now, in her head, in her heart, burning away all rationality.

Dawn crossed her arms. "You want to talk about _respect,_ Spike? What about me? Where's my respect? I'm so sick of you guys treating me like I'm some helpless _child-_ "

"-You _are_ a helpless child-"

"-who can't take care of herself! I'm fifteen now, and I've been living on the same Hellmouth as the rest of you for going on six years. I can protect myself just fine."

Actually, considering the night's events, that was maybe a bit of an exaggeration. If tonight had any lesson, it was probably 'backup is always better than no backup'.

Spike's jaw dropped. "Don't need anyone to protect you? Should we roll out the bloody damn scoreboard? How many times have you gotten kidnapped? By _me_ even?"

"Well maybe if you guys actually _let me help_ , actually let me learn about this stuff, I wouldn't get kidnapped so many times."

Spike snarled and jabbed a finger at her. " _No._ Your sis didn't want you anywhere near this stuff. She _died_ to protect you! You don't got a say in the matter anymore. I told her, I promised her I'd protect you and that's what I'll bloody well do if I have to lock you in a _convent_ myself!"

The pain dropped into the furnace, made her burn all the hotter.

"It's my damn life, Spike, and you must still be drunk if you think _you_ can tell me what to do. Protect me? Let's get real here, you can barely protect _yourself_. If I wasn't here to take care of you, you'd be drowning in a pool of whiskey and your own vomit right now."

Spike looked away from her, looked down at her carpeted floor. His expression, its defeat and resignation cut her. Sliced through flesh down to bone. Dawn hadn't meant to say that, meant to say any of it. She wanted to apologize, but she couldn't. The words were ash in the fire.

So she stood there, scowling, arms crossed, hoping he would scream at her, yell, say any of the things she deserved.

Instead, he simply shook his head.

"Do what you want." His voice was as cold as his lifeless body. "I'm done with you."

He turned and walked out. Dawn stood there, statue still until she heard her front door slam shut. Then she walked to her bed and collapsed. She buried her face in her pillow.

_What's wrong with me? Why do I attack people who just want me to be safe?_

Once the fire started to rage, there was nothing it wouldn't burn.

Spike made a big show about being tough, but it _was_ a show. He had a poet's sensitive soul. Dawn lay there and continued to berate herself.

Then she reached into her bedstand and pulled out a pocket notebook. Referencing her forearm, she scribbled Clark Kent's phone number into it and placed it back into the drawer.

At least it seemed Spike hadn't picked up on Clark being from the spooky side of things. He had been right, as far as Dawn could remember, she and Clark never actually touched each other.

" _I have this problem with being touched."_ he said.

Maybe that's why Spike couldn't detect anything weird. Or maybe it was weirdness that wouldn't show up in smell. Maybe Clark was like Buffy after all, a normal human with superpowers.

That was a more comforting possibility.

Dawn wondered if Spike would tell the others about what had happened. She didn't think so. Spike tried to duck the Scoobies whenever possible. They all worked together, but Spike never made any secrets about how little he liked them.

He had been telling the truth, he was only still around for Buffy. Because he thought protecting her was what Buffy wanted.

_I think it's his pride that's mostly wounded. Spike can hold a grudge like no one, but I can make him forgive me. As long as it takes, whatever it takes. I just have to find Buffy first. Once I find Buffy, everything will be okay again._

Drained, extinguished, Dawn reached up and with a click turned off her bedside lamp.

Once she found Buffy, everything would be okay again.

_...crap, how am I gonna explain this hole in my wall?_

* * *

Dawn took her seat across from Clark at the Coffee House cafe.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "It bruised?"

"Wha-, okay, how did you know that? Also that thing you did when we first met, when you could tell I was lying, how did you do that? Is that part of your whole...you know…" she waved a hand at his face " _situation_."

" _No_ , I'm just…" he sighed. "Actually, yes. I've got better senses than most people. I can tell you went especially heavy on the makeup right where the vampire hit you last night."

Dawn groaned. "Getting past the Scoobies was nerve wracking. I was sure one of them was totally gonna notice."

Clark took a sip of something dark and steaming in a mustard colored paper cup sporting the shop logo.

"Coffee?" Dawn asked.

Clark's nose crinkled. "Ew. No, hot chocolate."

His eyes shifted around and he leaned in close, whispering. "So…how do we...how should we proceed?"

"Well," Dawn said, grinning "we _don't_ proceed like a couple of Cold War spies in a B thriller movie."

Clark frowned at her. "Says the girl still wearing her sunglasses indoors."

"Sorry," Dawn said, pulling off her pink-framed sunglasses, but she was still grinning. "But you don't need to get all 'cloak and dagger-y'. No one's listening to us, and if they did and overheard us talking about something spooky they'd just assume we were kids talking about some game or movie."

"Is that right?"

"Pretty much. Especially in this town. People just see what they wanna see."

Clark looked out the window. The cafe was near a bunch of strip centers, the whole area was basically what passed for a shopping district in Sunnydale. Plenty of foot traffic on a saturday morning.

Dawn wondered what he was thinking about.

She leaned against the table. "So, what we need to do is find out where Buffy is, find out if she's really Buffy, and what she's doing here."

Clark turned back to her and nodded. "What do we know?"

"Jack. With a side of squat. We know she was at your house..."

"And that she was fast."

"Yeah well, mystic destiny super powers, remember?" Dawn frowned. "How fast?"

Clark shrugged. "It's not like I had a speedometer on me at the time. Seventy, maybe eighty miles per hour...I take it from your face-"

"-doesn't sound like Buffy." Dawn shook her head. "I think the fastest Buffy's ever clocked was like, thirty-five or forty."

_Which means...it's not her, right?_

Maybe, maybe not. It wasn't a lot to go on, and the reading wasn't exactly iron clad.

"How fast can _you_ go?" Dawn asked.

Clark squirmed a little and looked away.

"Sorry, nevermind. It's none of my business."

"That's okay," Clark said. But he still didn't answer the question. "So, you said before that there are demons and things, right? Could one of them do this?"

"Maybe…" Dawn huffed. They were going nowhere fast.

What would the Scoobies do right about now?

"Usually when Buffy or her friends needed to find out about a baddie, they'd go to Giles. He's got this whole library of books about demons and stuff."

"...can you ask him?"

Dawn bit her bottom lip. "No...I'm...they don't exactly know what's going on."

Clark nodded. "Well, is there anyone else we can ask?"

_Spike…_

"No."

Clark gazed out the window again, finger tapping on the table. "So, we have don't know anything, and we don't have any sources of information."

Dawn watched the steam curl out of his cup. "Sorry. You're here trying to help me out and I'm useless."

Clark shook his head. "Not at all."

He stiffened suddenly. Dawn looked at him, expression questioning.

"I...think I may have just had a terrible idea."

"Well, they say there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm."

Clark looked away. "They say that, do they?"

_Sounds serious._

But Dawn was desperate. "Clark, just tell me what it is."

Clark nodded. "Well...we don't know what it is. So I think the first thing to do is try and figure out what it's not."

Dawn nodded. "Right, okay...that makes sense. How do we do that?"

"Well, I don't know anything about all this stuff but...I think that maybe the fastest way for us to find out if it's really your sister resurrected or something else pretending it's her-"

Dawn felt something cold move through her.

"-would be to dig her up and take a look."


	11. Chapter 11

"God I can't wait to drive." Dawn pulled her hair up and tied it off into a tail. The back of her neck was damp with sweat.

The Sun smothered Sunnydale with its glare. Dawn took another sip of her water bottle and wiped at a bead of sweat that was sliding down her sunglasses.

"Buffy couldn't drive for anything. My friend Janice is gonna try for her learner's permit this year. You ever driven?"

"Yeah."

Trying to pull conversation out of Clark Kent was occasionally like trying to pull blood out of stone. His eyes kept darting around. He was probably waiting for someone to stop them on the street and ask them what they were doing walking around with the shovel Clark had secretly liberated from his house.

So Dawn had to talk enough for the both of them. She had to talk, if only to keep her mind off of what they were about to do. It had to be insane.

But Clark hadn't been wrong. They had no other leads, and it would answer one of her questions.

Her stomach was twisting on itself, and try as she might, her mouth always felt too dry.

She took another sip of water.

"She fought Dracula once, you know?"

That got a wide eyed reaction. Dawn grinned.

"Wait, _Dracula_? As in…"

"Yup."

"That's so _crazy…_ your sister fought demons, and one of her best friends and her girlfriend are _witches_. Actual _magical_ witches...that's just…"

"Crazy? Dangerous? _Crazy dangerous?_ "

"Amazing."

Dawn blinked. "Yeah...I guess it kinda is when you stop and think about it. You look like you're still wigging over all this stuff. Have you really never run into any other supernatural stuff?"

"Back in Smallville, a man named Larry Davidson grew a thousand pound squash. Does that count?"

Dawn snorted. "Uh, no. I doubt that. Though who knows, maybe old Larry summoned up a demon and sold his soul for a giant squash."

They made their way to the edge of town on foot. It was cooler in the woods. Dawn followed an instinctive path. She'd been here enough times. Often it felt like the only person she could talk to was the grave of her sister.

Which was funny because Dawn hadn't been so forthcoming to Buffy when she was alive.

They stepped through the green, twigs snapping underfoot.

Far enough away that random hikers wouldn't come near it was the small clearing. A single gray headstone sat in the middle.

_Buffy Anne Summers_

_1981-2001_

_Beloved Sister_

_Devoted friend_

_She saved the world_

_A lot_

Dawn stared at it. She was really here, this was happening. Clark hadn't moved, he was watching her. Dawn realized he was waiting for her to give her permission.

This was a beautiful spot. Verdant green, brilliant sun...but it seemed all black and white to her.

Dawn could remember the burial. She could remember the sleek black dress they'd buried Buffy in. She remembered the still, empty face. Buffy had never been without some expression. That stillness had been wrong.

"What do you think she looks like now?" Dawn asked.

Clark shifted from one foot to the other. "They...do things, to a body. Formaldehyde and such. Helps to preserve it."

"...we couldn't have her embalmed."

"...oh. Right, of course."

"We couldn't let anyone know. We did it all ourselves."

Clark was silent, but she knew what his answer was. The thing sleeping in that coffin would not look like Buffy anymore.

_If it's even still there…_

Dawn swallowed. She had to be brave. This was how she would get her answers. And it was just a body. A body is nothing. It wasn't her sister anymore.

She took a deep breath.

" _Do it",_ she wanted to say.

She remembered a cat she'd seen by the sidewalk once. Surrounded by flies, body sunken and vanishing into the earth.

_It's just a body._

She saw her sister's beautiful face. She saw it rot away, turn green, brown, black, vanish. Nothing left but an empty skull, grinning at its private joke.

Dawn turned away. She vanished back into the treeline. She fled into the shade of a tall tree. She leaned against it, hiding her face, trying to find her breath.

It wasn't long before Clark followed. It seemed he could move pretty quietly.

Dawn felt like she was choking.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I can't…"

She didn't see him reach a hand for her shoulder. Didn't see the hand stop in the air and then pull away.

"It's okay," Clark said. "I understand. For what it's worth, it doesn't look like the grave's been disturbed. I doubt anyone dug her up."

Dawn turned to face him. "You sure?"

He smiled a little. "Inhuman eyesight."

Dawn nodded and pushed herself away from the tree. "Back to square one then?"

"Well, we're not out of options yet. It might take longer, but there's something else we can try. We can go around to places your sister used to hang out and see if anyone's seen her."

"What makes you think she'd do that?"

"Well, if it _is_ your sister back from the dead, even in some incomplete or imperfect way, maybe force of habit would make her more likely to appear in those places than others."

Dawn nodded. It sort of made sense. "But what about if it's not her? You don't necessarily need to dig up the body for necromancy. I have this book on witchcraft my friend Willow showed me after my mother died. It had this whole section on resurrections. There are some that would bring a body directly to a caster...still, I think it's more likely now that this is an imposter."

Dawn felt something like a lead weight in her heart. How silly of her, getting so excited about the idea, the tiny foolish hope that maybe her sister was back. But no, this was just more evil. This was the Hellmouth after all.

"Even if it is someone pretending to be Buffy," Clark said, "it doesn't change our strategy. If the imposter doesn't know Buffy's dead, then they took Buffy's shape so they could take her identity, which means showing up where she would show up. Alternately, they _do_ know she's dead, but Sunnydale isn't that big. If they just by chance show up at one of Buffy's old hangouts, there is a higher chance someone there will recognize her."

Dawn smiled. "Wow, I didn't know I was walking with Columbo."

Clark waved her off. " It's still a long shot."

"Better than no shot. Buffy probably went to the Bronze almost as much as she went to cemeteries. Let's go there."

"Sure...let's stop on the way, get a late lunch. You'll feel better after you eat something, I think."

Dawn snorted. "...thanks."

"Don't worry about it."

"But I doubt I can manage much of an appetite right now."

"We'll see if you can still say that surrounded by the smell of grilling meat."

Dawn laughed.

The duo walked together out of the forest.

Dawn felt the fire in her again.

_If some evil thing thought it would be a good idea to use Buffy's face, my sister's face to pull their crap...well, they're gonna find out some things I've learned from William the Bloody._

* * *

Dawn and Clark approached the tall grey facade of the Bronze nightclub.

"Looks closed," Clark said.

"Yeah, it's still too early in the afternoon. But, looks like we've got a bouncer. Who better to ask?"

Dawn approached the burly man sitting on a worn wooden stool hunched over a newspaper.

"Excuse me, sir…"

Than man kept his eyes on his paper.

"Sir...hello? Hey, guy!"

"Get lost kid, we ain't open yet."

Dawn bristled. _No, stay calm. You need this guy's help remember?_

"Look sir, I just need to know if you've seen someone."

"I haven't. Now scram."

"But I haven't even- gah." Dawn reached into her backpack and fished out her wallet. She took out a picture of Buffy from one of the plastic sleeves. She held it out for the man to see.

"Please, sir, just take a second."

The man still didn't look up. "Nope, haven't seen him."

Dawn grit her teeth. _This guy is twice your size. Don't kick his chair out from under him._

Dawn took a step back and crossed her arms, thinking. She smiled.

"Boy, the old Bronze. Had some real fun times here."

The man snorted, "yeah, I'll bet."

"Me and my other _underage_ friends love coming over here. You know, because the bartenders don't card-"

The man looked up.

"-and the bouncers just let us in. Without supervision."

The man scowled. "Oh please. No one will buy that."

"My close friend Tom Granger might, you know, the Sunnydale _Chief of Police_. Him and my mom go way back."

"That's real fucked up-"

"-hey, listen, _guy_ , you're the one who couldn't take ten seconds out of your life to help me out. So, you can deal with _me_ for ten seconds, or you can deal with the cops. Which one do you think is gonna be more annoying?"

The man sighed, but he glanced at the photo. "Fine, whatever. Oh, it's Buffy. Why didn't you just say so in the first place?"

_Don't punch him in the face, don't punch him in the face, don't punch him in the face._

"Oh, I get it," the man said, "Buffy told me once she had an annoying little sister. That's you right?"

Dawn just glared at him.

"Well, what's wrong kid? Sis didn't come home last night? That makes sense. Yeah, she was here."

Something like ice rushed through Dawn's veins. " _Last night?_ "

"Yep, it was weird. Buffy's one of the gabbiest people I know, but last night I don't think she said a word. Didn't leave alone either."

"What do you mean didn't leave alone?"

The man scratched his chin. "Look, your sister's cool. Months ago she helped me out with some rowdy customers. Still, can't speak for her taste in men. She left with another regular. Chris Palumbo."

Dawn nodded. _Chris Palumbo._

"Can I get back to Marmaduke now?"

"Just one more thing-"

The man groaned.

"-does my sister come here often?"

"Not anymore. In fact, last night was the first time I've seen her in months."

Dawn thanked the man and left. She found Clark waiting for her at the end of the alley, mouth ajar.

"What?" Dawn asked.

"I can't believe you just threatened to call the cops on that guy."

"Wait, you _heard all that?_ "

Clark looked away and looked halfway through forming a denial when he stopped. "Yeah, I could hear. Inhuman hearing."

"Huh, impressive. Anyway, it's the guy's own fault."

"Do you really know the Chief of Police?"

"You mean your lie detector couldn't tell?"

"It was kinda muddy. Like you weren't exactly lying but not quite telling the truth."

"Well, I met him once for like five seconds forever and a half ago at one of my mom's gallery openings. I didn't even want to be there, but Buffy had patrol and they couldn't find a sitter."

Dawn's nose crinkled at the memory. "I'm pretty sure they were flirting too. So gross."

Clark smiled. "So, this Chris Palumbo guy, you know him?"

Dawn shook her head. "I know his name though. The Palumbo's are kinda big money in this town. Jorge Palumbo donated a few pieces to my mom's gallery before, so I met him once. I'm pretty sure Chris is his son, but other than that I know nothing. We can look him up though, and then go check him out."

Clark nodded.

They started walking and Clark spoke again. "So, it looks like these sightings of your sister or whoever are new. I saw her thursday night, this guy saw her friday night…"

"Yeah, and it can't be the Buffybot because it's been busted all week long."

"...the what?"

"Oh...the Buffybot. We sort of have this...robot that looks exactly like Buffy that we use to pretend is her."

Clark stopped in his tracks.

"... _you have a robot?_ "


	12. Chapter 12

**I just finished reading "Superman: American Alien" by Max Landis (** _**Chronicle, American Ultra** _ **). I really liked it, I think it might make it to my top five Superman story lines.**

**If you get a chance to check it out, I recommend.**

* * *

"Should be just a bit further up this hill. The Palumbo house is something of a landmark. It puts even all the other mansions here in the swanky part of town to shame. It's a real modernist place if I remember right. All cube-y with a buncha open walkways and like big glass windows instead of walls and stuff. Like a roman villa or whatever…"

"..."

"Clark..."

"Hm?"

"You with me?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"...Are you? Cause I feel like you're still kinda hung up on the whole 'robot' thing."

"A little bit, yeah."

Dawn stopped walking. "Hey, Clark, listen. I need you to get past it, ok? It's almost show time and we gotta go in there with our game faces on."

Clark nodded and they kept walking up the long road that wound through the tall hills at the edge of town. Here the wealthier residents could keep houses with a commanding view of Sunnydale below.

"It's just...I mean...a freaking _robot_! I mean, vampires, sure. Witches, cool. Demons, weird, but okay. But an actual android with a functioning artificial intelligence-"

"-functioning is maybe stretching it a bit-"

"-is still levels above anything being developed currently. I mean, the revolution it could bring to robotics technology and computer theory...our whole understanding about the nature of cognitive development…"

"And we would say...what? 'Hey, this pervert built himself the world's most advanced sex toy, just take it and don't ask us any more questions'? People would come looking to find out where tech like that came from."

Clark sighed. He got it. After all, he himself had a piece of hardware buried in his own yard that could revolutionise what humans knew about the universe probably even more than the robot.

But he could never tell anyone.

"Yeah," Clark said, "I guess you're...is that a _castle_?"

Dawn glanced up. "Oh yeah. That's the castle Dracula was using. You know, no one's sure how he got it there. He probably had it built."

"...so someone just builds a _medieval castle_ in a small southern California town...and no one...no, you know what? Nevermind, I'm done. Sure, you have a robot, and Dracula built a castle here, and that's a thing. Fine, that's fine. I'm past it."

Dawn tried not to grin, but her muscles were slippery as eels and slithered out of her grasp. "You get used to weird stuff around here. Now, c'mon. I'm just melting in this sun."

Clark stopped abruptly. Dawn turned to him, raising an eyebrow.

" _Cops,"_ he said. "Lots."

Dawn's eyes widened. "What? Here?"

"Further up ahead." Clark tapped a finger to his ear and Dawn understood.

But up ahead meant the Palumbo house.

_Buffy!_

Dawn clenched her fist as if grabbing hold of a railing to keep herself from running off. She couldn't just go bolting into a house full of police officers.

_And didn't you already decide this thing wasn't Buffy?_

It _probably_ wasn't Buffy.

But the question now was, what to do. She looked at Clark. Maybe she hadn't been utilizing her resources efficiently. "Can you tell what's going on?"

Clark closed his eyes and grew very still. Dawn noticed his breathing become slow and even. He swayed a little, like waves were moving over him.

Then his eyes snapped open. He looked at her. "There's been a murder-"

Dawn's heart jumped up into her throat.

"-it's the guy we're looking for. Chris Palumbo."

" _What?"_

Clark closed his eyes again.

Dawn forced herself to become still, to not demand instant answers.

Clark spoke again, but it wasn't his voice.

"Alright Cohen, what've we got?" Clark's voice was low, gruff, like a man much older than him.

Suddenly his voice shifted, higher pitched, younger, but still not Clark's. "Good afternoon, Chief. We've got one victim, the maid found him this morning when she came in to clean. Name is Christopher Palumbo, male, latino, twenty-six years of age-"

"-look, Cohen," gruff again, "you're new so I'll let it go. Everyone here knows who Chris Palumbo is. What can you tell me about what happened?"

"Right, ah...the M.E. is still doing the prelim but it looks like cause of death was a single stab wound to the chest. It directly pierced through the heart. He probably died almost instantly...uh, we'll need a more detailed report before trying to ID the weapon. It wasn't a knife or a blade though. It was something pointed and roughly cylindrical"

"-what like a poker?"

"Thicker than that probably. No defensive wounds, nothing broken. We'll need someone from the family to say if anything's been stolen but it doesn't look like it. We're dusting for prints, sweeping for DNA, run it see if we get a match but...apparently this guy was in here with a different girl most nights."

"Yeah, that's what I hear too. Damn it, I just know Palumbo Sr. is gonna be jumping up my ass about this."

"...well his son is dead, sir."

"Lot's of people's children are dead. The difference is rich people seem to think that because they have the pull to harass the police they'll somehow get us to do our jobs faster. I miss Mayor Wilkins, that crap would never fly under him."

Dawn started when Clark spoke in a third voice, a flawlessly female voice. Dawn couldn't repress a shudder.

"Chief, I'll need to complete my analysis back at the morgue but my initial guess for time of death is about two or three in the morning."

"Lovely. Well, let's do what we can before the press inevitably comes rushing up here to trample all over decency."

Clark opened his eyes. "Well…"

Dawn looked away, out over the town. The sun was on its way down. "That was a neat trick."

"I was just repeating what they said. I thought it'd be easier if you just heard what I heard."

"What about the voice thing?"

Clark frowned. "Voice thing? What voice thing."

"You know, when you changed your voice. Were you like mimicking them or something?"

"What on earth are you talking ab-" Clark stiffened. "One of the officers just got into a car and he's coming down."

"Shoot, okay start walking. Act natural."

They both turned and started down the hill. Unfortunately there wasn't anywhere on the road for them to hide.

A blue and white squad car rolled up from behind them, and Dawn felt her heart start to trot when the car slowed down and halted next to them.

Dawn kept her eyes firmly on the road in front of her until the car window rolled down and someone called out. "Hey, you two, what are you doing up here?"

Dawn recognized the voice. Clark had replicated it perfectly. It was the younger officer, Cohen if she remembered right.

Dawn turned. "Is there a problem, officer?"

"What are you kids doing up here?"

Dawn shrugged. "Just going for a walk."

Cohen turned and looked up the road behind them.

Dawn winced, remembering that further up there was nothing but the Palumbo house and eventually the castle.

"Taking a walk to where?" the officer asked.

Dawn made a show of hesitating before shrugging, a small grin tugging the corner of her mouth. "You caught us, we wanted to go look at the castle."

The officer stared at them. His expression was blank and his mirrored sunglasses revealed nothing about what might be going on behind his eyes.

_You could be a bigger stereotype,_ Dawn thought, _a cop wearing aviators. You look like you walked right off the set of a "CHiPs" reboot shooting._

"Well," the officer said, "you kids know that's private property right? You can't go up there."

"Oh c'mon," Dawn smiled brightly, turning her charm dial high as it would go. "It's a freaking _castle_! You can't tell me you've never been curious."

"...look, just, keep away from now on, okay?"

"Fine, fine." Dawn pouted as the man rolled up his window and passed them by. When he was gone from sight Dawn sighed in relief.

"That was close."

Clark was still staring after the car.

"Clark?"

"...I don't know, there was something weird. He was staring at me. Something about it seemed...off."

"Staring at you? How do you know that."

Clark shrugged. "I don't really know, it was more like a feeling. Well, maybe I'm just being paranoid."

Dawn laughed. "Sorry for sayin', but I think that's a habit with you."

Clark smiled at her but then he bit his lip. "Dawn, look-"

"-yeah, I know." Dawn looked away. "Chances are this Buffy look-alike killed this guy. All that stuff about the weapon and 'stabbed through the heart', sounds like it could be a stake."

Clark ran a hand through his hair. "Maybe...there's something else too."

Dawn looked at him. "Huh?"

"The night I saw your- the night I saw this person or thing...the next morning I found a dead man. He was killed in almost the exact same way. Stabbed through the heart…"

Dawn swallowed through a tight throat. Her insides felt hollow, an emptiness that pulled inward at her.

"I...I think when I started this whole thing, when I first saw your sketch and tracked you down...I don't know, my whole life all these people close to me, Buffy and her friends, have been fighting evil. I guess, since she's been gone, I've wanted to…" Dawn's hands waved around, trying to capture this nebulous sensation, to shape it into words she could express.

"I didn't tell anyone else about what I was doing, 'cause I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, that I could pick up Buffy's slack." Dawn looked back up the road, toward the Palumbo house. "But two people are dead now. We don't have anymore time for my dumb little coming-of-age-movie moment. I need to tell the Scoobies."

Clark nodded. "Okay...I guess that's it for me then."

Dawn's head snapped up. Actually, that shouldn't surprise her at all, she didn't know why it did.

"Oh," she said.

"And uh...I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about my part in all this."

"...yeah. Yeah, sure. Of course."

The hollow feeling slowly spread through her chest. Clark was looking at her, but Dawn didn't meet his eyes.

"We'll still see each other at school, probably."

"Yeah, right. I know." Dawn made herself smile. Whatever her dumb feelings, she wouldn't burden Clark with them. Besides, she'd get over it. It was silly of her to get all disappointed over nothing. And he was right, they would almost certainly see each other again soon, right?

Dawn couldn't tell if she fooled him or not, and he didn't mention one way or the other.

"Let me walk you home," he said.

"Nah, that's okay. You don't have to do that."

"Well, I'd like to,if you'll let me."

Dawn laughed. "Jeez, you're all candy-coated aren't you?"

They talked more as Dawn took the long way home. If he noticed, he didn't say. Dawn wasn't sure why this felt like a goodbye. It wasn't like he was really going anywhere.

Maybe she'd just gotten too used to them, to goodbyes.

He watched from down the road as she went through the door with a wave.

Willow and Tara were in the living room, leaning against each other on the sofa and watching tv. They both turned as she came in and they smiled at her.

"Hey guys," Dawn said. It felt like her stomach was twisting, snakelike, inside her. But it was time to bite the bullet. "Can you call Giles, Xander, and Anya? There's something I gotta tell you all."

* * *

Dawn hadn't stopped pacing since the call was made. She acutely felt Willow, Tara, and Giles' stares pressing down on her, boxing her in. But she made them wait for-

"-so, what's the hubub bubs?" Xander walked in through the front door, Anya in tow.

"This better be important," Anya said. "I'm missing _Money Talks._ "

Dawn paced to the coffee table in front of the sofa. She picked up her glass of water and sipped. It would be needing its third refill soon.

Xander and Anya walked into the living room. Xander kept his smile up but his gaze was questioning. Anya just looked bored.

"Well?" Xander asked, clasping his hands together. "What's the news? You guys call all 'Xander get over here'. What's going on?"

"We're quite unsure actually," Giles said, eyes still on Dawn, expression inscrutable. "Dawn is the one who called this meeting."

That man was like a sphinx, all mysterious and...sphinx-like.

"She said she had something important to tell us," Tara said, "and she wanted to wait for you to get here."

Xander's smile dimmed further as he looked at Dawn. "I get the feeling I maybe want to sit down for this."

Willow scooted over making space for him on the big sofa. Anya took one of the recliners next to it, and Giles had the other.

"So, Dawnie," Willow said, "everyone's here. Can we break with the cryptic? You're not uh...you're not failing a class right?"

"Wha- failing a class? We've been in school like, two weeks. How could I be failing already?"

_I mean, I've been having some problems, but thanks for the vote of confidence, Willow!_

"Good! Okay, so you're not failing...is it-" Willow turned pale. "Dawn you're not...on drugs are you?"

Dawn rolled her eyes. "No, I'm not on drugs…"

She wanted to tell them, but the words stuck like cotton balls in her mouth. She took another sip of water.

Giles took off his glasses. "Dawn, clearly whatever this is, it's very difficult for you, but hesitating is only going to make it worse. We're here to listen. So, just tell us what's troubling you."

Dawn took a deep breath. Then she told them.

She told them the edited version anyway. She omitted Clark completely, and told them some random student had claimed to have seen Buffy. She left out her night time excursion, the Spike incident, and obviously the four vampires. But she told them what little she'd learned.

The Buffy sighting was real, confirmed by the Bronze bouncer, and now two men were dead. Explaining how she knew about the murder weapon and such had been trickier. She told them some cop had gotten chatty with her. They seemed to believe her.

When she brought the story to a close, everyone was silent.

Giles spoke first. "How…"

That was all he said. The room returned to the silence of the tomb.

"It can't be her," Xander said. "I mean, Buffy would never kill people."

Willow seemed half catatonic. There were these strange looks shooting between Xander and Tara that Dawn couldn't decipher.

"Well, that depends," Anya spoke up. Naturally, she seemed to be the one taking it most easily. "There are spells, serious magic, that can bring people back to do tasks for you. It's sort of like an advanced zombie."

"So," Tara asked, "she _could_ be back and someone is controlling her? Making her kill people?"

"Not necessarily," Giles said. His expression was hard and cold as marble. "It might be some manner of demon. There are quite a few that can take people's forms. I can think of several species of Ghoul that take the shape of the dead to prey on the living...they usually eat their victims, however."

The conversation continued like that. Dawn had pretty much faded from their attention. She had her eyes on Willow, who still hadn't said a word.

"Well," Anya said, "we could stand here just throwing out random guesses, _Pictionary_ has proven that, but we eventually need to decide what to do."

"Right, of course." Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them with a rag he liberated from his jacket pocket. "Well, to begin with, we'll need to do research. See what kind of entities can mimic the dead or possibly even perform resurrection."

"I wanna help." Dawn said.

"We should also hit Willies'," Xander said. "Maybe some of the demon types have seen something."

"Should we get spike?" Anya asked.

"I wanna help," Dawn repeated.

Xander frowned at Anya and shook his head. "I don't think that's such a great idea. You know that guy goes coo-coo for coco puffs whenever Buffy comes up. He gets wind of _this_ who knows what'll happen? He might even join this thing and fight against us just because it's got Buffy's face."

"I don't know," Tara said, "Spike's got more demon contacts than any of us."

" _Guys!_ "

They all jumped and looked at Dawn as if suddenly realizing she was still there.

"I wanna help," Dawn said.

Again the silence.

"Oh sweetie…" Tara started.

"Out of the question," Giles said.

"What? Why?"

"Dawn, you lied to us. You went and recklessly started investigating this dangerous incident all on your own-"

"-oh come on! None of you guys had any idea what was going on! If I hadn't gone out and investigated-"

"-then why did you not simply tell us from the beginning?"

Dawn bit her lip. "Because...because I wanted to be sure. I didn't want you going through this if it turned out to be nothing."

Which was the truth, just maybe not all of it.

Dawn glanced at Willow, still staring blankly.

"You still should have told us," Xander said.

"I'm sorry."

Xander looked down.

"...C'mon guys, it doesn't have to be anything dangerous! I don't have to go out and _fight_. I can just help with like, research or something, behind the front lines, you know? Totally safe!

Giles sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Dawn...we appreciate the sentiment. But it remains that we are adults and you are still a child. You should have told us. You shouldn't be involved in this sort of thing."

"Shouldn't be involved? We're talking about your Slayer, your best friend, but my _sister!_ Not one of you has more right than me to be involved."

"Dawn," Willow finally spoke. "Dawnie, please. Just leave it. You're still too young-"

"- _Too young?_ " Dawn crossed her arms. "I'm the same age Buffy was when she started, and yeah, I know she had super powers, Xander so you can skip that bit. But none of you had superpowers when you decided to start helping her. And you were only a year older than me."

"Yeah, but Dawn," Xander said, "do you think we chose this stuff? Do you think we wanted to be fighting monsters all the time? It did things to us, to our lives-"

"-yeah, _obviously_. But Xander, you _did_ choose it. You could have just left Buffy alone and pretended like nothing was happening like everyone else in this whole freaking town, but you didn't. You didn't because you _knew_ that the evil was still there whether you wanted to admit it or not!"

Dawn closed hot eyes and took a deep breath. She couldn't let the fire rage, or it would continue to destroy everyone she loved.

"I know you guys are just trying to keep me safe, you just want to protect me. You think I don't get that, but I do...the problem is, you're _not_ protecting me. I get dragged off by some demon like once a month. The badness still finds me, and when it does, I have _no idea_ how to defend myself. You guys trying to shelter me...that's what's going to get me killed."

They looked away from her, thinking. Dawn felt a wave of hope surge up. Surely they would see now, they would understand.

"Dawn," Willow said, wringing her hands. "Dawn, I'm sorry...but Buffy didn't want this life for you."

That wave of hope hand an undertow, and it pulled Dawn down beneath the water to drown.

"Dawn there's still so much you could do," Willow continued, quickly as if to overrun Dawn's response. "You don't have a mystic destiny like Buffy to keep getting in the way. You could go to a good college… and be like a...I don't know, an anything."

Dawn's voice was very low, almost inaudible. "Anything I want? A doctor? Or a lawyer?"

"Yeah," Willow smiled, "anything you want. Buffy wanted you to be able to achieve your dreams, become someone great."

"Great…" the sea boiled as the fire exploded out. "What the _hell_ could be _greater_ than saving people from _evil!_ "

Willow flinched away, but she gave no ground.

Dawn scoffed. The heat fled outward, all that was left was steam.

She sagged forward. "Please...please, don't shut me out. Not now. Not when it's about _Buffy._ "

Willow's eyes were red and wet, Dawn felt her own vision start blurring.

"Dawn," Willow said, "I'm sorry…"

Dawn stood up without another word and walked away. She saw Willow hang her head out of the corner of her eye. Tara pulled her into an embrace.

Dawn passed Xander and Giles. They said nothing, they didn't even meet her eyes.

Dawn's legs felt like lead as she forced them to take her up the stairs and into her room.

She slammed the door behind her. She walked to the speaker beside her bed and started blaring something loud and aggressive before she collapsed onto the bed, buried her face in a pillow, and screamed.

She came up for air, throat sore, voice hoarse, eyes red and bleary. But she could think now. She smacked a button on the speaker and the music stopped. Dawn slid out of the room, she could hear the Scoobies conferring downstairs.

She liberated a cordless from another room and took it back. In her nightstand drawer was her notepad. She dialed the number.

It rang once, twice, on the third ring-

"Hello, Kent residence."

"Clark…"

"Dawn? What's wrong."

Dawn managed a wheezy chuckle. Of _course_ he could tell immediately.

She told him.

"Dawn...I'm sorry. Is there something I can do?"

"Yes," she hissed.

Silence on the line.

"I see...are you sure about this? Dawn, I think…"

Dawn sighed. "I know...I know they just want to protect me. But I won't be shut out of this. This is about _Buffy_. I didn't tell you before, how she died. Clark...she died saving me. I owe her to do _something_ with my life. Something more than just a four-point-whatever GPA and a good job."

"...are you sure that's what this is about?"

Dawn frowned. "What do you mean?"

She heard Clark sigh. "Listen, I can tell you're gonna do this with or without me, _still_ , so I'll back your play...but why are you really doing this? I just wanna make sure you're clear. Because it seems to me, that if this were really about honoring Buffy, you'd be doing what _she_ wants you to do."

Dawn was silent. She stared out the window. The sun had set. Why _was_ she here? All that other stuff about living up to her sister, protecting her friends, was that all just smokescreen?

No, not entirely anyway. But even so…

"You're right," she finally said, "I'm _not_ doing this for Buffy, not totally. I'm not doing this for anyone else...I'm doing it for me. This is what _I_ want."

She bit her lip. "...does that make me crazy?"

"Yes."

"Ouch, you could have at least pretended to think about it."

Clark laughed. The sound made the painful knot in Dawn's chest start to come undone.

"If you're crazy," Clark asked, "what does that make me who's following you?"

_A good person._

"So," Clark asked, "what do you want to do?"

Dawn lay back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking. "Honestly, I'm not sure. You got any thoughts?"

A pause.

"Well, so far we've been going after this doppelganger of your sister, trying to find out where she's been, what if we reverse our thinking?"

"You mean, try to find out where she'll go next?"

"Exactly. Let's meet up tomorrow, and look into the two victims. If we can find out why she killed them, we might be able to find out if and who she might try to kill next-"

"-And get there first." Dawn laughed. "Good thinking, I like it."

"Well, I've seen a lot of crime dramas."

"So, we have a plan. See you tomorrow...and Clark, thanks…"

"Don't worry about it. It's not like I could in good conscience let you go running around town looking for a killer. Not by yourself anyway."

They said their goodnights and Dawn looked out the window into the deep blue night.

She had a plan again, and a fire of a totally different sort was burning in her.

She gazed into the darkness, and she smiled.


	13. Chapter 13

" _Clark, come here please."_

_Clark walked over to his parents._

" _We're building a home," his mother said. "Would you like to be a part of it?"_

_Very much._

" _Lay down, son," his father said._

_Clark got onto the floor, face down._

" _How about you turn over," his father said._

" _That way we can hide your tail." His mother averted her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at it._

_Right, sorry._

_Clark turned over onto his back. He curled his tail under him._

" _Good, now hold still," his father said._

" _We're serious, Clark," his mother added, "the most important thing for you is that you remain completely still."_

_Clark went still._

_His parents broke decks of playing cards out of their boxes and started building. They carefully arranged the cards to form the base of their home. They built it first over his lower half._

" _Better to hide your tail with."_

_Clark waited in perfect stillness for what seemed like hours while his parents built their house of cards over him._

_His tail started to ache. He longed to move it._

_His father stared at him. "Clark, you must keep it still."_

" _What would the neighbors think?" His mother asked._

_Clark turned his head ever so slightly. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a window in the far wall._

_Through it several men in white lab coats were watching them, taking notes._

_The house covered his whole body now, slowly starting to cover his face._

_Wait. We might have a problem. If you guys cover my face, my breath or my voice will certainly knock the house down._

" _Well that's easy," his mother said, "just don't speak."_

" _And more importantly," his father added, placing more cards around his head, "don't breath."_

_So Clark held his breath. He held it as the house covered his face._

_But his lungs were burning._

_He didn't know how long it had been._

_Outside he heard the neighbors making notes on their notepads, watching him through the window._

_His lungs were burning._

_How much longer could he hold it?_

_Not long. His parents had almost finished the house. But when they were done, he would still be holding his breath._

_His lungs were burning. He couldn't hold it, he needed to-_

* * *

Clark woke up to find his face buried in a pillow. He rolled over, gasping for air. He was in his room.

He waited for his breathing to even out, then he rolled over onto his back.

_Damn, too bad I was asleep for that._

Bizarre dreams aside, that would have been an excellent chance to test how long he could hold his breath again. He'd have to remember to do that some other time.

He could hear his mother downstairs making breakfast. He heard a local newscaster from the television. He heard the rustling of paper.

Clark smiled. He never understood his dad's habit of reading the newspaper while the news was on.

Clark slapped the sides of his face to wake up. He had a big day today. He turned and looked at the digital alarm clock sitting on his desk next to his laptop.

Dawn would be coming by soon. So he needed to eat, get ready, and if he could find the time, do a quick web search on how to investigate.

Clark got out of bed, headed downstairs, and greeted his parents. He made some idle chatter about the news as he tried to think up the right approach.

"So," he said, "do you guys remember that project I had to do yesterday."

"Right," his mother said, "with your classmate, Dawn Summers was it?"

"Yeah, so anyway...mom, what are you smirking at?"

"Nothing at all."

_Lies._

"Anyway, projects not quite finished, so I'll need to go back out again today."

"That's fine," his dad said. "What's this project on again?"

Clark started giving him the explanation for the fake project again, knowing he wasn't really listening.

As he spoke, Clark trapped his egg under his fork and sliced into it with his knife.

There was a crack of shattering porcelain as Clark's knife shot right through the egg and into the plate.

A long, jagged crack split the plate in two.

His mother jumped and his father dropped the newspaper.

" _Fuck!"_ Clark dropped his utensils as he stared at the destroyed dishware. His heart thumped first from shock, then from rage.

_God Dammit!_

Clark pushed his chair back, away from the table and squeezed his eyes shut, balling his hands into fists and pressing them into the sides of his head.

He took long, slow breaths.

"It's okay, Clark," his mother said, "it happens." He heard her get up and start picking up the pieces of the plate.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

He heard her dump them into the trash bin.

Clark opened his eyes, got up and walked out. His father called after him, but he kept walking. He stepped out into the sunny backyard. He could smell the loam and the foliage of the garden.

Clark walked over to a plot of dark earth. This is where he and his father had planted an orange tree seed when they first moved here over the summer.

" _Think of it like a promise,"_ his father had said. _"We're gonna be around to make sure this tree grows up big and strong."_

It was weird to him that they weren't worried about planting things here, considering what else was buried beneath this soil.

Clark swore he could feel it beneath his feet, pulsing and humming. But that had to be impossible, it must be his imagination. The thing was totally inert.

Clark knelt down and dug his fingers into the dirt. He imagined himself reaching for it.

That chrome slick dart.

His spaceship.

The only connection he had to whatever he was, wherever he'd come from.

He was calm once more.

He heard his father make his way toward him.

"Been awhile since that happened..." his father said. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"

"...yeah."

His father looked out over the garden bed, squinting in the sun.

Clark sighed. "I think I've gotten stronger in the past year than I have in all the years since you guys found me...it's like I've been following this linear graph all my life and now, _bam_ , I switch to an exponential curve. Every time I feel like I finally have it under control, everything changes and I need to recalibrate all over again."

"...you fell asleep last night."

Clark nodded.

"That makes it what? Seven days? A full week you can go before sleeping."

"Roughly. Up two days from what I marked last year."

"...maybe you should stay in today."

"No...no, I'll be fine."

He had made a promise to Dawn to help her. His idiot body would just have to behave itself until then.

As if mocking him, his thumb started to twitch. He started at it, willing it to stop.

It continued to wag at him. He clutched the hand close to his chest to hide it.

"I'll be fine," he repeated.

"...Okay, if you're sure...by the way, another outburst like that, and I'm going to institute a swear jar." His father grinned. "What do you say, oh rebellious youth of mine, wanna pay for the mortgage?"

Clark snorted. "No, I'm good, thanks. Sorry about that, slipped out."

Still laughing, his dad walked back into the house.

Clark clasped his hand to his chest and waited for the thumb, thrashing and writhing like a chained beast, to fall still.

_I'll be fine…_

Clark turned, through the sliding glass door he could see his mother and father cleaning up his mess. From this side he had an excellent view of the long surgical scar that ran across his father's jaw.

His stomach twisted into knots.

_Sure, I'll be fine. But what about everyone else?_

* * *

Later that morning, Clark answered a knock at the door.

"Hey," Dawn said as she just walked into the house.

Clark just smiled wryly at her. There was someone else behind her. A tall man with dark hair. He was staring intently at Clark.

"Hello," Clark said, stepping back so the man could enter.

"So, you're Clark Kent?"

"Yes, sir."

"And Dawn's here to do a project?"

"Yes, sir."

The man glanced at Dawn who huffed and crossed her arms.

"Clark, this is Xander. Friend of the family. He thinks I'm lying about coming here to do a project."

_Well, you are,_ Clark thought.

"Can't hurt to confirm. What class is this project for?" Xander asked.

"Biology." Clark replied.

"And what's it about?"

"It's a report on local flora."

Xander looked from him to Dawn, who looked smug and raised a challenging eyebrow. Clark just tried to look as relaxed and unsuspicious as he could.

"And you guys were doing that all day yesterday?" Xander asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Can I see what you've done so far?"

Clark heard Dawn's heart rate shoot through the roof. Clark gave Xander a friendly smile.

"Sure." Clark closed the door behind Xander as he stepped in. Then he went upstairs and into his room. He came back down with a stack of notecards and a posterboard with the words 'Sunnydale Flora' written in big block print.

Dawn almost sighed in relief, but caught herself. Xander took the notecards and flipped through them.

"Are you parents home?" he asked.

"My dad's working, but my mom's in the back. She gardens. Let me go get her."

Once Clark went out into the backyard, he heard Xander and Dawn.

"Geeze, Xander, you're being rude. What the hell is that about?"

"Are you kidding me? I here making sure you're not planning on sneaking off again to play _Harriet the Spy_."

"Wha-I would _never_ rope some normal kid into any dangerous spooky business. How can you even think that?"

"I don't know, Dawn, I used to think that you'd _never_ lie to us, not about something that important. But hey, guess I'm the idiot."

"...I said I was sorry-"

"-enough. Let's not talk about it anymore."

Clark frowned. That had maybe been rude of him to overhear. But it wasn't like he'd been trying to listen in...not especially.

He found his mother under a large sunhat, troweling into the garden bed.

"Hey mom, Dawn's here with her...sort of...friend person."

His mother smiled at his description and got up. The two went back into the house and Xander and his mother had the kind of pleasant inane chat that adults all seemed to learn.

Finally satisfied that there was no secret plot in place, Xander took his leave, promising to be back for Dawn before nightfall.

"So, mom," Clark said, "we're gonna go to my room and do some research."

"Alright, let me know if you need anything."

Clark led Dawn up to his bedroom.

"Cool," she said, "check out all the space junk."

"Gee, thanks."

She stopped to admire his poster of the Crab Nebula.

"Hey, I've always wanted to try one of those," she said as she saw his telescope propped in a corner.

She walked over to his bookshelf, a modular plastic unit that you could assemble.

"Can I?"

Clark nodded and she brushed her hands along the spines.

"There's almost no fiction."

"Yeah, most of the fiction I read is stuff I get from the library…" his eyes drifted to his desk. He walked over. He pulled open one of the drawers and took another book out.

"This is one I keep around."

Dawn walked over and looked at the cover. " _Stranger in a Strange Land_...what's it about?"

"It's...it's about a human who returns to earth after being raised by martians."

"Huh, that's neat."

Clark gently set the book back. "So, shall we begin?"

"Wow, Clark, you finally get a girl into your room and that's it? No mood music, no lighting, just 'let's get started'."

Clark reached over without looking, snatched up a pillow from his bed and lobbed it at her gently as he could, slow enough for her to duck with a squeak.

She came up giggling and Clark rolled his eyes. "I have had a girl in my room before, if you _must_ know."

"Ooooh, Clark Kent, the Corn-field Casanova. Spill, what's her name."

"Did you come here to talk about my-" nonexistent "-love life or did you come here to find a killer?"

"I'm good at multi-tasking."

Clark rolled his eyes again. He suspected that if he kept spending time with Dawn, his eye might wind up stuck like that.

"Fine, if you must, know her name was Chloe, and we were just friends, I was messing with you. And for the record, Casanova was a pedophile, so I don't appreciate the comparison."

"Ew," Dawn's noe crinkled in disgust, "really?"

"Yeah, so let's move on." Clark pulled out the rolling chair at his desk and sat down.

Dawn sighed. "Still, I think I could come up with a cool nickname for you. If we're gonna go around being spies, we should have codenames. How about Hercules?"

"...how familiar are you with the non-disney version of the myth of Hercules?"

"Not very, but I'm guessing from your face that this one is a pass as well?"

"Yeah, pass."

"Okay," who else? Dawn remembered a book from her literature class last year with a super strong protagonist. What was his name? "How about Gilgamesh?"

"Did you _read_ that book?"

"...I skimmed it, also not good?"

"A little bit not good, yeah. Look, you're O for three, how about quitting there? Let's just stick to our names."

Dawn sighed. "Laaaame. But okay. So, let's get started."

"Wow," Clark said, turning the chair to face his desk and booting up his laptop, "you finally make your way up to a boy's bedroom and that's it? No music, no lighting, just 'let's get started'."

Clark tsked. Then, he leaned forward slightly. His pillow whooshed past the back of his head, smacked into the wall, and fell to his bed.

He grinned as Dawn huffed.

"Super reflexes?" she asked.

"Super reflexes."

Dawn walked over and sat next to him on the edge of his bed, staring at his computer screen. "Your desktop background is a picture of the Milky Way, shocker. Nice computer though."

"Thanks, I built it."

"Whoa, really?"

Clark ran his hands over the slick black keys. Years of carefully saved chore money.

He predicted at least five years before it needed an upgrade.

"So," Clark said, "we have the name of one victim."

"Chris Palumbo."

"Right, so let's see what we can find."

"His family is the closest thing Sunny-D has to celebrities so it shouldn't be too hard."

They found and scrolled through several articles from local newspapers. Most of them involving incidents of disorderly conduct.

"This guy seemed kinda…"

"Douchey?" Dawn supplied.

"Yeah." But if Clark knew anything, it was that people often had hidden depths. Clark opened another article, eyes quickly scanning over it.

"Hm, he was an artist."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Clark moved to the side as she leaned forward to get a better look at the article.

"Says here he won a sculpture contest a few months ago...holy crap this was held at my mom's old gallery."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Connection?"

Dawn bit her lip. "I'm not sure. Maybe."

She scrolled down, but suddenly Clark leaned forward.

"Whoa, stop right there."

Dawn took her fingers off the touchpad. The article had a picture of six people standing around three impressive sculptures and smiling brightly.

Dawn recognized Chris. Douchey he may have been, but she had to admit he was hot. But he had a dangerous, raptor sort of beauty. That smug smirk also made him more than a little punchable.

"I get the feeling," Dawn said, "that if we're looking for enemies, this guy's gonna have a long list."

"Well, the overlap should narrow it down," Clark said as he pointed to another man in the picture, standing next to Chris on the other side of what Dawn assumed was Chris' sculpture.

"That guy, that's the dead man I saw."

Dawn's eyes widened. He was an older, balding man with a bushy dark beard flecked with white.

She looked to the caption.

**Pictured (from L to R): First place winner Christopher Palumbo, second place winner Sarah Keane, and third place winner John Darton. Also pictured (from L to R): Judges William Wescott, Carey Smith, and Emma Ying.**

"So," Dawn said, "we have the first place winner and a judge both murdered. Maybe someone didn't like the way the contest played out?"

Clark made a face. "I don't know...would someone really kill over a small town art contest?"

Dawn shrugged. "Some people will kill over a sandwich. Either way, this can't be a coincidence. Maybe there was more to the contest. Anything about a prize?"

Clark leaned forward, scanning through. "Yeah, a scholarship grant in the amount of...wow, okay, that might be slightly better motive for murder."

Dawn whistled. "I might kill someone for that much...what, don't look at me like that. I said _might_."

Clark thought back to research he had been doing earlier. "In a crime, a good place to start is usually with whoever benefits most from the crime."

Dawn scrolled back up to the picture, looking at a small girl with dark features. "Sarah Keane, little miss second place. So close, but so far."

Clark opened another tab and ran another search. "She's a student at UC Sunnydale."

"So, probably in need of some scholarship money. Money Chris Palumbo certainly didn't need with his rich daddy, plus...go back to the picture."

Dawn pointed at the computer screen at an item dangling from Sarah Keane's neck.

"A triskelion," Clark said. "It's an old celtic symbol...so?"

"So, I happen to know that there is a Wiccan coven practicing at UC Sunnydale?"

"Witches...like your friends?"

Dawn frowned. "Well no, they practice the religion, but Willow told me as far as she knows none of them do any real magic. Still, doesn't mean one of them didn't stumble onto some real bad mojo."

"Hm, the contest gives her possible motive. If she really does have...magic, that could be a means…"

Dawn smirked. "She's looking like our perp."

"Maybe...but…"

"What?"

"Well, I'm no expert, but isn't Wicca a religion about peace and balance with the world?"

Dawn snorted. "Aren't all religions? That's never stopped people from ignoring tenets when they need to go do whatever craziness they're in the mood for."

Clark nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Okay, how do we do this?"

"Well, according to every episode of _Law and Order_ I've ever seen, we go to her and question her, probably while she's busy moving boxes around or something."

"Okay, but how, it's sunday, so she won't be in school."

Dawn smirked. "Leave that to me. Got a phone?"

Ten minutes later, Dawn clicked the cordless off. "Okay, I've got the name of the student tenement where she's living."

Clark blinked. "Wow, I don't think I've ever seen duplicity like that. Just watching it was exhausting."

Dawn grinned. "Why thank you kind sir, it's a skill acquired over the years."

"Ah, you're maybe a little too proud of it."

Dawn quickly stuck her tongue out at him. "Still, it wasn't good enough to fool you."

_Well,_ Clark thought, _you're only human._

Dawn got off his bed, reaching up and stretching. "Alright then, let's go confront a killer-"

"-suspect."

"...Whatever."

Dawn all but bounced out of the room. Clark sighed and wondered again what he was getting himself into.

Then he got up and followed after her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's note:** Gaaahhhhh. So I made the mistake of watching Luke Cage (loved it), before finishing this story. Why is that a problem? Well, I had a scene planned out for later in the story that coincidentally runs almost exactly like a scene in Luke Cage.
> 
> So I've been here agonizing, what do I do? Do I cut it, do I change it? If I leave it as is, won't people think I just copied it?
> 
> Eventually I decided, who cares? People can believe what they want. So I'm just gonna plow ahead. Parallel thinking is real after all. It'll be a while before we get to the scene though.
> 
> Oh, in other news, all ten seasons of Smallville are now available on hulu, and Tyler Hochelfisdhfoahf or however you spell his last name is doing a pretty good Superman over on Supergirl. If you have a chance, check it out.

The Red Palm Student Housing Complex had, in Dawn's opinion, just awful coloring. A two story building with walls painted a sort of salmon-y orange of all things. She and Clark ascended the steps together onto the second floor landing and made their way to their target.

Apartment 2-E.

Dawn knocked on the door.

"One sec…"

The door swung open and Dawn found herself staring at the crown of a dark head. She looked down.

"Well?" the woman asked.

"Sarah Keane?"

The woman narrowed her eyes. "That's me."

She had long brown hair, her own skin a shade lighter, deeply bathed by the sun. She was short, shorter even than Buffy. Despite that, her body would never be mistaken for a girl's. Dawn was pretty sure the word 'voluptuous' was coined for people like her.

Dawn spotted the three spiral arms of the silver triskelion pendant around the woman's neck. "I'm Dawn Summers, what do you know about the murder of Chris Palumbo?"

She heard a strange, strangled noise from Clark behind her.

The woman's eyes went wide, then narrow, then her whole face became taught.

"Huh? How crack-piped out are you? What do I know about his death? I don't even know the guy!"

Clark coughed a little behind her. That was the high sign they'd agreed upon on the way over here. Clark had detected a lie.

Dawn shifted the weight of her backpack. "Miss Keane, we're pretty sure his death had something to do with the contest you recently took second place in. Know anything about that?"

"Wha- listen you little brat, get out of my apartment. I have no idea what you're talking about-"

Clark coughed again.

"-and get your friend some god damn cough drops."

The door came swinging closed but Dawn threw her foot out.

_Ow!_

But she'd made it in time.

"Miss Keane, hold on, it's important that you tell us what you know."

"Get the hell out, kid. I'm serious." Sarah Keane pushed harder on the door. Dawn felt it squishing her foot. Suddenly the pain and the pressure disappeared.

Dawn turned and saw Clark gently pushing on the door with one hand. Sarah Keane tried and struggled in vain to close it. She might as well have been pushing at the Great Wall of China for all the good it was doing her.

Dawn spoke to take advantage of Clark's help. "Not only was Palumbo killed, but William Wescott, one of the judges was killed also."

Sarah stopped trying to push the door closed.

Dawn could hear her panting with exertion. "Please, Miss Keane, tell us what you know. You might be in danger too."

Dawn heard nothing but the sound of Sarah Keane's breathing.

Then, the door came open and Sarah Keane scowled at them.

"I don't know what you're talking about, now get the hell out before I call the cops."

Sarah Keane stepped back and the hallway echoed with the sound of the door being slammed in Dawn's face. She hadn't tried to stop it.

"What the hell was that?" Clark asked as Dawn walked past him, headed for the stairs.

"What was what?"

"Oh, come on, really? What was with the whole...interrogation thing?"

"Clark, this _was_ an interrogation. What are you getting all wonky about?"

"Yeah maybe, but we're not cops. She isn't compelled to talk to us. Why'd you go asking like that? It's obvious anyone would have slammed the door on us."

"We're burning daylight here, Clark. Whatever is going on only seems to be going on at night. We need to figure out who the next target is before then so we can be there to make sure no one gets hurt and that we catch this thing."

They reached the ground floor and Dawn continued striding forward out across the parking lot.

"Even if that's true, we won't learn anything by being rude."

"Not true, we learned something. We learned she's lying to us. She definitely knows something about something. We just need to figure out what."

Clark followed her out onto the sidewalk. "Dawn, where are we going?"

"Payphone."

"Payphone?"

The duo walked down the street until they found a payphone in a gas station parking lot.

"I see you've stopped your naysaying," Dawn said.

Clark just shrugged.

"Well, I'm glad you've decided to accept my natural and obvious leadership as the senior _Ghostbuster_ of the two of us." Dawn flipped her hair back and held her nose high with a haughty smile on her face.

Clark snorted. "Yes ma'am."

"Seriously though, Clark, trust me. I have a plan."

"Well, considering how your plans have been going since I met you, I think I'll go ahead and brace for impact. Don't worry, though. I'm not the 'I told you so' type."

Dawn stuck her tongue out at him as she reached for the payphone. "There's that at least...um...you got any quarters?"

Quarters obtained, Dawn dialed Sarah Keane's number, courtesy of UCSD's gullible administration.

"Hello, this is Keane," the woman answered.

Dawn raised her voice a pitch, remembering back to the way Buffy would speak during her psycho pep-squad days. She put on a bright grin. Maybe it was her imagination, but this kind of act was easier when she went all in.

"Why hello, Miss Keane! I'm Sally May with the financial aid department of UCSD, how are you doing this afternoon?"

" _Sally May?"_ Clark said.

Dawn waved furiously for him to shush up.

"I'm fine," Sarah Keane said, "how are you?"

"Good, good. Now I'm afraid I've got a bit of a problem here, Miss Keane. It seems there are some irregularities here in your file…"

" _What the heck is that accent?"_

Dawn stomped on Clark's foot.

"Irregularities?" Sarah Keane said.

"Well, I'm sure it's just a mistake someone made during the filing process. But I'm afraid that if we don't figure this out and fix it...well miss, I'm afraid we might have to revoke your financial aid."

"What!"

"Please calm down, Miss."

"Calm down? What are you nuts? What do you mean 'revoke', is that even legal?"

"Miss, Miss, relax. Like I said, I'm sure it's fine. But if you could just come down to the office I'm sure we can sort this out."

"Are you guys even open today? It's sunday."

"Yes, ma'am. But we won't be open long, so you need to hurry, hurry, hurry!"

"Right, okay. I'll head over as soon as I can. Thanks for the heads up."

"No problem, Miss. See you soon."

Dawn hung up the phone. She turned to see Clark staring at her.

"You're the Devil," he said.

Dawn grinned even wider.

Clark and Dawn took cover behind a blue Sedan as they watched Sarah Keane coming tearing out of the complex. Dawn pumped her fist as the woman walked right out of the parking lot.

"Okay, looks like she doesn't have a car. That'll give us a little bit more time."

"Time to do what, exactly?"

Dawn slipped out from behind the car once Keane was out of sight and made her way back to the woman's apartment, Clark in tow. She bent down over the doorknob and pulled something out of her backpack.

"Are those...lockpicking tools?" Clark asked.

"Yep, friend of mine...Spike, he gave them to me as a birthday gift...bit of an inside joke."

Dawn expertly worked the tools into the lock and a few seconds later, they heard a click.

Dawn grinned as she opened the door. Practice makes perfect.

She turned to see Clark staring at her. "Well? Got something to say?"

"Yes, actually...do you really have a friend named 'Spike'?"

_Only if he ever speaks to me again._ "Well, his real name is William, but if you ever call him that he'll probably kill you."

"Sounds like a nice guy…"

"Yeah, now that I think about it, he's basically one of the worst people I know...but, I don't know. He's nice to _me_." Dawn shook the thought off as she stepped inside.

"Okay," she said, "let's look around for anything...sinister or incriminating?"

"Defined as?"

"Oh, I don't know...I'm sure we'll know it when we see it." Dawn pulled a pair of ski gloves out of her backpack and slipped them on.

The duo moved through the apartment.

"Jeeze this place is a mess. Miss Piggy much?"

"Lot of pictures of her and a guy. Boyfriend?"

"Looks like, unless the men's clothes I found in her closet are pointing to a whole other life secret."

"That could be trouble, we don't know where this guy is or when he'll be back." Clark stopped suddenly and closed his eyes.

"What are you-"

"-Shhh...no, guess it's nothing."

"Clark, relax. Just keep those satellite-dish ears tuned and we'll know in plenty of time."

"Gee, thanks. Well, do you see anything magical?"

"A spice rack, some crystals, small time stuff. I don't think this girl's a serious kind of witch."

Dawn huffed as she scanned an art station, picking up clays and examining tools.

"Nothing in here to say how she's connected to Buffy either, dammit!"

Clark came into the room with a pink laptop tucked under his arm. "Found a computer, it might have something."

Clark dropped onto a bed next to a pile of laundry that, as far as Dawn could tell, could go either way. Dawn sat next to Clark on the edge of the bed and peered over his shoulder.

"Damn," she said, "password. Okay, let's look around. Maybe something here can give us a clue. I heard that most people's passwords are like, some combination of their birthday...or maybe it was their dogs birthday...or, wait, I think it was-"

Clark's fingers flew across the keyboard. The password input bar vanished as the desktop loaded.

Dawn's mouth hung open.

Despite his best efforts, a smirk escaped from Clark for a second before he reigned it in. He opened up the web browser, pointedly ignoring Dawn's fish impersonation.

"Looks like her email was still open, let me see if I can-"

"-what the hell was that?"

"What was what?"

"Oh no you don't. The strength, sure. Super speed, whatever. But what kind of superpower is super-password-guessing?"

Clark snorted. "Whenever anything touches anything it leaves marks I can see."

"What, like fingerprints?"

"And thermal prints. Whenever any two objects with different temperatures touch they leave a mark that I can use not only to tell which keys were pressed, but in what order. This plus a little bit of mental math with an algorithm I invented once when I was bored in a computer science class, and I can get a pretty good guess about which characters make up the password."

"...wow...that's just…"

Clark scratched the back of his neck. "I uh, I don't always get it on the first try. It usually takes around three...but I've never needed more than six tries so far."

"Oh my god...I could _own_ Kirstie's life! What? I'm joking, quit glaring at me like that...like you've never thought about getting dirt on people like that...fine, fine, let's just get back to it."

The two started scanning through the emails.

"Ew," Dawn said, "looks like she's had a lot of conversations with a guy who's handle is 'bigdickcheney'."

"...I know we didn't know this Will Palumbo guy personally, but...just based on your general impression of him from what we've gathered so far-"

"-oh that's totally got to be him."

They opened up the conversation log and started scrolling through.

"Oh my," Dawn said.

"Well, explains why she didn't want to talk to us."

"Looks like Miss Keane was getting some side action from our victim. This stuff is pretty nasty."

"But, the question is, does this make her more or less of a suspect?"

Dawn sighed. "I don't know. The guy at the bronze said Palumbo was a player, right? So maybe that gives her more motive, but like...why kill the other guy? And why use a Buffy clone...and how? My gut tells me there's more to this."

Okay, well let's keep looking-" Clark suddenly tilted his head. He closed his eyes in concentration.

"What?" Dawn said.

"Shh."

Dawn gulped. She tried to listen herself but she didn't hear anything.

"A car just pulled into the driveway, someone's getting out."

"Are they coming here?"

"Can't tell yet."

Dawn pulled the computer away from Clark and started scanning through emails.

"They're headed up the stairs."

_Dammit. Come on, there's gotta be something here._

"They stopped on the second floor, Dawn, I think it might be the boyfriend. We've gotta go."

"Wait! I've got something."

"He's stopped at the door, it's him." Clark took the computer from her. His eyes flashed over the pages. Then he snapped the laptop closed. He dropped it onto the bed and jumped up.

Dawn could hear the doorknob rattling as someone pushed a key inside it. Clark had thrown the window open. He furiously waved her over. Dawn sprang up.

"What are we gonna do?"

The door opened.

Clark suddenly picked her up. It took years of Sunnydale hiding-from-monsters instincts to keep Dawn from squeaking in surprise.

"Don't scream," Clark whispered. Then they were in the air.

As soon as he said the words, Dawn had clamped her hands over her mouth. Good thing too, because she couldn't stop the shriek when the two of them were suddenly shooting through the sky.

Everything rushed past, Dawn was buffeted by wind, and in the next second, her whole body shuddered with an impact. Clark had landed in a tree, perched on a thick branch.

But as soon as he landed, the branch snapped with a crack. The two dropped.

"Uph," Dawn groaned as they thudded onto the ground. "Ow."

Clark set her down and Dawn immediately collapsed again. Clark was quick to grab her.

"Legs," Dawn managed, "legs're noodle."

"Okay, just relax...I've got you."

Dawn fought the urge to puke as her limbs slowly regained strength.

"Christ that was scar-" Dawn turned around. The apartment complex was across the street.

The two waited there in the shade of someone's tree until Dawn recovered.

"Boy, lucky thing we hit this tree, ya lunatic." Dawn said.

"Well, not really. I aimed for it."

Dawn snorted. "Oh, of course you did. Remind me to never play darts against you."

"Bullseyes all day. I'm also basically a Jenga god."

Dawn dissolved into a puddle of laughter. Clark waited, eyes and ears alert for their surroundings, and for Dawn. Listening to her breath, listening to her heart. Slowly she started to calm down.

He supposed that was the resilience that came from living in a monster town.

"So, did you see anything, speed-reader?" she asked.

"Yeah, looks like not only did Palumbo bribe two judges to get himself first place, but also to get Keane second."

Dawn groaned. "Guess that means she's probably not a suspect then."

"Maybe. But there was more...in the email, Palumbo was bragging about his bribery, how he got two judges not only to give himself first place, but also to keep someone else from winning."

"Really? Who?"

"No idea, the email just referred to him as 'that loser'. But it sounded like this guy and Palumbo have had problems before."

"Interesting," Dawn grinned, "so now we might have the oldest motive in the world...revenge...dun dun dunnnn!"

Clark rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," Dawn continued, "if this is about revenge, then they got one of the bribed judges, and the guy who bribed. So...I'm thinking if there's a next target, it's gotta be the other bribed judge. I don't suppose he mentioned who it was?"

"Actually, he called her 'the chink', so I'm guessing it was Emma Ying from the photo."

"Wow...I know he was the victim and all, but that guy was the worst."

Dawn took a deep breath and stared up at the orange light filtering through the leaves.

"Okay," she said, "she looks like the target, but it's getting late. Here's our move. We've got to get back, but when I get home I'll look her up. Then, we sneak out tonight and stake out her house to see if the Dopple-Buffy shows its face."

_And then, I'll finally face this thing myself, and figure out once and for all what it is._

$ 


	15. Chapter 15

"Been waiting long?" Dawn asked as she crouched down behind a car. It was a Sedan or something, she didn't know much about cars.

"An hour or two," Clark replied. "Farm habits, my parents get to sleep early."

"Lucky, the Scoobies were basically looming over me all night. It took forever for all of them to fall asleep. Have I missed anything?"

Clark shook his head as he watched a house through the car windows. "Emma Ying's been in there watching reruns of _Seinfeld_ basically all night."

"Good, guess there's nothing for us to do then but wait…"

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

"God Dammit! The whole lower half of my body's gone numb. I wish cop movies would tell you how _boring_ stakeouts are. We don't even have a car. At least then we could sit normally. Not all of us have frickin' super strength that lets us sit still like statues for hours on end…"

"...finished?" Clark asked.

Dawn huffed. "Yeah, sorry."

"It's only been an hour."

"I'm aware."

"We're not even sure anything's gonna happen. We could be here all night-"

"-I know!"

"You can go home if you want."

"No!" Dawn fidgeted for the billionth time. She scanned up and down the street with her binoculars. She couldn't see anything, but the night was black as a charcoal painting. She was totally reliant on Clark here, with his apparently flawless night vision.

"Clark, talk to me."

"...about what?"

"I don't know, anything! That's what people do on stakeouts in movies."

Clark bit his lip.

"Look, Clark, I know you have this whole 'strong, silent, tin-hat-paranoid' thing going on, but if you don't talk to me I'm gonna _lose. my. mind._ "

Clark sighed. "Okay, okay. What do you want to talk about?"

"Dunno. Anything. I'm sure you've got stories right? Superhuman kid growing up in Littletown-"

"-Smallville."

"Right. You can't tell me nothing ever happened. Like why did you move to Sunny-hell?"

Dawn saw Clark's shoulders tense up.

"That's…"

"Nevermind," Dawn said. "Hey, don't worry about it. Looks like it was kinda heavy. Sorry. Tell you what, how about I talk? I've got Sunnydale stories for days."

The night marched on with them whispering to each other in the cool darkness. The secret things Dawn had never been able to tell any of her friends she told Clark freely. Most of them, anyway.

Around three in the morning...

"So, wait…" Clark said at the end of the latest tale. "This girl became invisible...just because she was feeling ignored?"

"Hah, yeah. That's the Hellmouth for ya. Most of the time it causes problems by calling all sorts of evil nasties to it. But sometimes it doesn't even need to do that. Sometimes it'll just make things happen on it's own, and the way something feels sort of...becomes the reality."

Clark shook his head. "I _would_ come to the one place weirder than Smallvi-"

Dawn frowned and looked up at this sudden silence. In the darkness she could make out his silhouette. His head leaned to the side in that way it did when he was listening to things beyond human perception.

"She's here," he said.

Dawn froze. Her fingers gripped the strap of her backpack. Clark lowly rose until he could see over the hood of the car.

Dawn forced her shaky legs to obey and rose herself. She followed his line of sight. She could see nothing beyond a silhouette in a white dress. Probably blonde. About the right height. But she couldn't really see.

"Are you sure?" Dawn asked.

"I'm sure. What do you want to do?"

Dawn stared at the distant figure across the street.

"Dawn?"

The figure reached the door and pushed it open with one hand. Even Dawn heard the sound of the deadbolt splintering the wooden doorframe.

"Uh-oh," Clark said. He moved out from behind the car. Dawn heard a rush of wind, a rain of gravel, a scream, and then a thunderous crash as part of the house's wall vanished. Obliterated like it had been struck by a cannon ball.

Then Dawn was running. Lights were coming on in the houses around them. Dawn ran in through the front door. By the glow of a television set, Dawn could make out a woman trying to press herself into her couch, screaming.

One side of the room had been devastated, the trail of destruction leading into the kitchen.

Dawn rushed to the collapsed wall and saw Clark grappling with the dark silhouette.

"Clark."

"Dawn, get her out of here! She's strong."

Clark kicked out toward the woman's leg, knocking them out from under her. In the same moment, Clark turned. The woman's purchase was gone and Clark spun her through the air and threw her. She smashed through another door, pulverising it.

Dawn heard rapid thuds as the woman tumbled down stairs into a basement.

"Dawn, now!"

A washing machine came flying like a fastball. It hit Clark straight on and took him for a ride through the kitchen window and back out into the night.

"Clark!"

But she had a job to do. Dawn turned and ran back. Emma Ying was crouched behind her couch, peeking out from around the arm.

"What's happening? What's happening?"

Dawn skidded next to her and dropped down, shaking the shocked woman.

"Ms. Ying!"

"What's happening? What's happening?"

Dawn shook her harder. "Ms. Ying!"

The woman's eyes focused on her.

"We need to go," Dawn said. She heard faint footsteps. Dawn turned and felt something like dark hands squeezing her heart.

"...Buffy?"

The white dress was nothing Dawn had ever seen. It didn't seem much her sister's style. But it was her. It was her face, anyway. Her face, and her weapon.

Dawn saw the stake grasped in those petite hands. She stood up, putting herself between Emma Ying and...whoever this was.

She seemed unreal, ghostlike in the blue luminescence of the tv screen.

"Stop." Dawn said. "Who are you? Are you...you can't possibly be Buffy. Buffy would never hurt people!"

The thing wearing her sister's face stepped closer. Its other hand, the one not holding the stake, rose. Dawn flinched but she didn't move. She was the only one between it and the trembling Emma Ying behind her.

The thing's hand came up to Dawn's face. It's fingers gently brushed a strand of Dawn's long hair the way Buffy had done a thousand times.

Dawn's eyes grew hot. It wasn't possible.

"Buffy?"

The woman smiled Buffy's smile. The fingers stroking Dawn's hair rested on her arm.

Dawn's head started to spin. She was pretty sure she was crying. Reality was gone for her, common sense destroyed. What was her world?

"Buffy?" She wasn't asking now, she was pleading. _Please. Be her. No matter what else, if you're really her, I'll figure something out. I'll find some way to save you._

And then Dawn was in the air. She hit the wall, the side of her head slammed into the plaster and lights flashed through her vision as she dropped to the ground.

On the cold hardwood floor, up was down and left was right as Dawn tried to get up. She felt like the controls for her limbs had been inverted.

She heard Emma Ying scream again. Dawn could just make out the shape of the Buffy-thing standing over the poor woman.

_Wait._

But then the shape vanished. Dawn heard the wind and again another crash. Dawn's eyes closed themselves on her behalf. She breathed slowly until her stomach told her the ground had stopped spinning. Then she opened her eyes again.

Emma Ying was curled up on the ground, sobbing. The house had a new improvised doorway about a foot to the left of the big tv. Dawn got up and carefully stepped over. She peered through the gap and saw the Doppelganger flip the remains of a crushed, mangled washing machine off her chest.

Dawn backpedaled, stopping to grab Emma Ying and pull her along. The Doppelganger stepped back into the room. From the new window into the night, Dawn could see lights on from other houses. But no one had come to investigate the racket.

_The Curse of Sunnydale: "See no Evil"._

But now that was probably for the best. Any normal person who tried to get involved would get splattered like a fly.

The Doppelganger was staring at Emma Ying.

"Ms. Ying," Dawn said, "Ms. Ying, you've got to get up. If you don't get up _right now_ you are going to die!"

That seemed to work. Dawn managed to pull the woman to her feet and together they slowly started backing up. Dawn heard footsteps behind her, saw the Dopplegangers glare shift, and she smiled.

_Of course._

Dawn turned just enough to see Clark walking into the living room from her peripheral, picking debris out of his hair and flicking it to the ground.

"Hey, Clark. Normally re-gifting is bad manners ya'know."

Clark glanced at her. "Is now really a time for jokes?"

"Mid-Battle Banter is a monster hunter tradition, Clark. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll catch on."

"Hm...listen, Dawn. On the other side of the room, on the coat rack, there's a little peg. Her car keys are there."

Dawn swallowed and nodded. She turned to Emma Ying.

"Hey, think you can drive?"

Emma Ying, quivering in Dawn's arms, gave a shaky nod.

"Okay. Clark, we're good to go."

"Okay then," Clark said, his stance tensing. "Go...now!"

There was a sudden rush of wind and a cacophony of destruction and the next thing Dawn knew, the couch was in two halves on opposite sides of the room, Clark and the Doppleganger were gone, and a wooden stake was imbedded in the wall inches from Emma Ying's face.

"Holy-" but there was no time for that. Dawn bolted to the other side of the room, dragging Emma Ying along with her.

There was another crash and two grappling figures rolled into the house, pushing each other through part of the intact wall between the living room and the kitchen.

Dawn fumbled along the pegs of the coat rack for the keys.

"There's a joke somewhere in here about remodeling costs but I'll think of it later," she said.

She found the keys as she heard what she thought was the sound of someone being thrown through the ceiling.

"Got 'em!" But her shaky fingers fumbled on the slick metal and the keys clattered to the floor.

" _Shit!"_

Dawn bent down and scooped the keys up, making sure to grip them in iron hands. She looked up to see the Doppelganger staring down at her from the top of the stairs.

The Doppelganger pounced, too fast for Dawn to react. She felt her heart freeze. Then there was an explosion of debris and a wave of force knocked Dawn to the floor. She scrambled back up. The doppelganger was gone, there was a hole in the wall next to her, and plaster rained down from the sky.

Dawn pulled Emma Ying, also knocked over, back to her feet. Dawn turned just enough to see Clark and the Doppleganger grappling outside. Clark managed to work his leverage and suddenly the doppelganger flew up into the air. Dawn heard the sound of a window shattering upstairs.

Clark jumped after her, his leap kicking up dirt around his feet.

Dawn ran out what used to be the door, dragging Emma Ying behind her. They ran out to the driveway where a large, dark...Dawn felt like the word she was looking for was "Jeep", sat.

Dawn tossed the keys to Emma Ying, whose flailing hands missed the keys, letting them clatter to the ground. The woman bent over and scrambled to pick them up as Dawn darted to the passenger door. Dawn heard scratching as Emma Ying's shaky hands tried to find the lock.

Dawn heard a click and pulled her door open. The two of them jumped into their seats, slammed the doors closed, and clicked their seatbelts on.

The engine roared to life. Dawn saw Emma Ying check the rearview and side mirrors.

"Really?"

Emma Ying put the car in reverse when suddenly the top floor of the house collapsed.

It started on one side, a sudden leaning which radiated out until the whole thing just dropped down. There was a roaring sound and the windshield was blasted by debris.

Emma Ying flicked the windshield wiper. The black hand pushed aside dust and splinters to reveal a pile of rubble.

"Clark!"

"My house!"

They both stared, mouths open, at the absolute destruction. Dawn saw something move.

"Lights."

"What?"

"Turn the lights on!"

Emma Ying switched the lights on just as a figure pulled itself out from under the remains of the house. It stood up, white dress blowing in the wind.

Emma Ying screamed.

"Drive!"

"What?"

"Drive, dammit! Drive right now!"

Emma Ying's foot slammed into the gas as she spun the wheel. They were thrown back onto the road. Dawn heard the shift of the gears again.

With the screech of tires, they blasted off into the dark Sunnydale streets. Dawn turned around.

She felt her heart leap into her throat as she saw the Doppelganger chasing after them.


	16. Chapter 16

Dawn's eyes watched the dash of the car. The arm of the speedometer climbed up. 40, 50, 60…

_C'mon, c'mon!_

Dawn jerked her head around. By the streetlight she could make out the billowing white dress of the Doppleganger, just an arm's length behind them.

What had Clark said?

" _Seventy, maybe eighty…"_

Dawn turned to Ying. "You _must_ go faster."

"Hang on."

Dawn barely had time to reach for the bar on the roof before her whole world pitched sideways.

She heard someone shrieking.

_That would be the tires._

Her stomach twisted as they took a sharp right so hard it almost flipped the jeep.

Dawn cried out. She couldn't help it. For an infinite breath they were between solid ground and the tipping point.

Then they crashed back down to safety.

Dawn turned to watch the Doppelganger try and come to a skidding halt. The pavement behind her threw up white smoke as she burned a collision course with someone's mailbox, obliterating it on impact.

Without missing a beat, she recovered and with and explosive step was after them again.

"She can't take corners as well as the car can," Dawn said, "not at this speed, but-"

"-every time we try a turn like that, we're rolling the dice on the car not flipping."

"Basically."

"What the hell is happening? Who is that woman? _What_ is she? Why is she chasing me?"

"Um…" Dawn looked back.

The Doppelganger was on them! It had recovered the pace impossibly fast. This was just way too unfair.

_Clearly this is a T1000 someone did in a Buffy getup._

"She's caught us," Dawn said. "Can you shake her again?"

"There's only one place we can turn!"

Dawn looked forward at another intersection up ahead. How far? A hundred feet? Two?

Too far.

Dawn turned again and saw the Doppelganger was gone.

_What the…_

Dawn faced forward and looked into the rear-view.

There she was, keeping pace with the rear wheels. Dawn glanced at the speedometer again.

80.

She looked back and saw the Doppelganger raise her stake. She was going to take out the tire.

Dawn tried to shout a warning.

The Doppelganger swung-

* * *

Clark scrambled around under several tons of house. If only he could find steady ground he could get out of here.

_Well, we can add 'collapsing house' to the list of things I can survive._

There was a strange throbbing coming from various points on his body. It took him a moment to remember that these were aches.

_Jeez, I might actually bruise!_

How cool was that?

Actually, wait. Now wasn't the time for such thoughts. Clark could hear debris shifting and falling over each other. His opponent was freeing herself.

Clark dug his way through the wreckage as fast as he could. He heard Dawn and Ms. Ying yelling and the car peeling out. His feet finally found solid ground. With a powerful push, Clark burst out of the demolished remains of the house like a cresting dolphin.

As soon as he landed, he darted into the street. Looking down it he could see Ms. Ying's car taking a hard right, the Doppelganger maneuvering after them.

Clark grit his teeth.

_If I just chase after them, I'll never catch up before this woman catches them. But maybe…_

Clark's vision swam with numbers as he started running.

_Distance, time, acceleration, velocity, mass._

So, probably right about...now!

Clark pushed with all his might, the sidewalk under him cracked with the force of his legs pushing against it, jumping into the air and sailing forward.

He felt his heart jump into his throat.

_I hate heights._

The wind whipped past him and he fought to keep his body totally still. One wrong move here and his calculations could be thrown off completely.

He soared over half a dozen buildings before he started to fall.

He could see them, the woman had caught up to the car, poised to take out one of their rear tires.

_I need to do something._

But what?

Clark yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

The woman's head snapped around toward him. She gave him a blank look, and her step faltered for half a second.

That was enough. The car pulled ahead by inches. Her swing missed the tire, but snapped off the rear bumper with a metallic groan.

And then Clark landed.

His feet planted themselves squarely in the woman's stomach. There was an explosion, a cloud of dust, and a rain of asphalt as they both hit the ground.

Clark's vision was obscured, but he could hear the car and its passengers fighting for control, trying to pull themselves out of a deadly tailspin.

The the ground pulled itself out from under him and Clark fell. His hands went out instantly and hit the ground. Clark pivoted on them and flipped back onto his feet.

His heart was beating a double-time march.

He got straight in time to block a lightning fast punch. The force of it still sent him flying back through the air. He landed on his feet and instantly rushed forward.

The woman retaliated with a kick aimed right at his gut. He was moving too fast to avoid it. He took the hit, and the force of their impact launched both of them to opposite ends of the road.

Clark smashed through someone's fence. He skipped off the ground once like a stone across a pond, then he was using the momentum of his crash, rolling to his feet.

His opponent was one step ahead of him, already up and chasing after her prey.

_Oh no you don't!_

His feet dug into the ground like a cheetah's and he sprang forward, panting with the chase.

* * *

"Look out!" Dawn screamed as she watched the Doppelganger take a swing at the rear wheel.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

_What?_

Someone was yelling. Dawn glanced up.

_...is that...Clark?_

Sure enough, Clark was flying through the air, mouth wide and eyes bugging as he hollered.

_...what the f-_

Clark hit the ground, no, he hit the Doppelganger. Dawn felt the jeep shudder down to her bones as something exploded behind them.

Suddenly they were spinning, spinning and screaming as the force of Clark's landing knocked them off course and suddenly they were on a path to plow right into someone's front yard.

Dawn and Ying were both still screaming. In her peripheral, Dawn saw Ying spinning the wheel furiously one way then another.

Dawn was shaken like a picture in an etch-a-sketch. The tires were screaming along with the ladies, throwing up smoke as it chewed the road.

After the seconds that took a year, they were back on the road. They took another series of sharp curves and turns at near eighty that rocked and threw Dawn about like a boat in a storm before spitting them out on Wilkins Street, the main street through the town.

"Holy crap," Dawn said. "Holy crap. We're alive...how?"

Emma Ying was gasping next to her, grey streaked hair matted down with sweat.

"I...back in the days before the death of disco...back when I lived in L.A. I was big into the street racing scene."

Dawn stared at her. "And now you're a small town university art teacher with a jeep…"

Ying laughed in the grip of hysteria.

Dawn heard a sound like the rolling thunder.

"...What is that?" Ying asked.

"I would go faster," Dawn said watching the meter tick past ninety.

She turned around in time to see the wall of a store behind them explode outward onto the street in a hail of brick and a cloud of dust.

* * *

Clark slammed into the woman right before she reached the car making another hard right. The two of them went rolling into someone's front lawn.

Clark managed to come out on top but it proved fruitless as she easily kicked him off into the air. He landed on his feet and strafed, keeping himself between her and the retreating car.

She stopped her blind chase and glared him down. When it looked like she would break to one side, he moved to intercept her.

When she tried to wheel around, he kept himself in front of her. They were caught in a deadlock.

That was fine for Clark, all he really needed was for Dawn and Ms. Ying to escape. If he could do that just by stalling, he'd stall away.

And since he was stalling anyway…

"Who are you?" he asked.

The woman said nothing.

"Apparently, you look a lot like the sister of this girl I know. Are you Buffy Summers?"

No reaction.

"I can't tell right now which answer would be worse…"

_For Dawn…_

To have your dead family member back, or to have them be...this…

Which was more important?

The woman tensed up, and Clark responded. But she didn't go for either side, she shot straight ahead.

It seemed she was intent on plowing through him. Another crash would just flatten them both, and she was quicker to her feet than he was, so it'd be her advantage.

_But don't go thinking I'm just gonna let you have your way…_

Right before she would have hit him, Clark stepped to the side. She moved past him with a rush of air.

Clark's hand snapped out, wrapping around the wrist outstretched to punch him.

She had so much momentum, that if he had just tried to stop her, he would have been pulled along. So he didn't. He set his feet and turned with all his strength.

She weighed almost nothing, a hundred and change soaking wet. But she was moving so fast, Clark had to strain with all his might.

Even then, his feet started sliding on the grass. He felt it on his bare feet, his shoes having been pretty much obliterated by friction somewhere down the road.

Still, he was able to maneuver just enough that instead of shooting forward, she went flying sideways and up into the air.

But Isaac Newton, tyrant that he is, demands a reaction for each action. Even after Clark let her go, her momentum spun him and threw him, rolling, over the ground.

Clark sprang up as fast as he could, looked around, and grimaced. He'd pretty much obliterated someone's little garden.

_Sorry. I'll find some way to make it up to you…later._

Then he was off in the direction he'd thrown his adversary. Fortunately his aim had been true and she hadn't crashed through anyone else's home. He raced after her.

He left the residencies behind as he stepped into the town's central district. By the street was an auto-repair shop. A big neon sign which read "Mike's" glowed over the building.

At least, it was supposed to say "Mike's". But the 'i' had apparently been pulverized out of existence and the 'k' had been knocked into the 'e', causing it to topple and shatter on the ground in front of the garage.

_Sorry, Mike…_ Clark thought as walked forward. _She must have fallen through the roof._

Clark could hear her moving around. Then, Clark heard something else. He turned around.

_...you have_ got _to be kidding me!_

Sure enough, here came Dawn and Ms. Ying, tearing up the road.

Clark's mouth dropped open as they shot past him. Had he just thrown their pursuer right at them?

Clark heard the groan of metal behind them.

_That can't be good,_ he thought, turning just in time to take the garage door to the face.

Clark and the garage door slammed into someone's restaurant, coming in through a large window and wrecking several fine tables.

Clark pushed the garage door off him and stood up, brushing away wood-chips and rags of tablecloth.

He heard another crash outside and bolted out. Apparently the woman had decided that, instead of chasing behind the car, it would be faster to come at them from the side, even if that meant plowing through several stores that made the foolish life choice of standing in the way.

Clark shook his legs to loosen them up.

_Okay, round three then._

He shot after her, following the trail of destruction she left in her wake.

* * *

"She's gaining on us!" Dawn yelled as the jeep blasted right out of town, following the street.

"Hold on, I'm going to try and lose her again."

"How?"

Ying inclined her head slightly to the side. Dawn looked and saw a branching road.

"Isn't that the way to the dam?"

"Yes. The road there is pretty curvy. If she's as bad at turns as you said, I think we can lose her there."

Dawn bit her lip. "I don't know about that. Your 'Speed Racer' days were a _long_ time ago…"

Ying scowled. "Hey! I'm not _that_ old. Trust me, my skills are fine...it's like riding a bike...probably."

"You're joking right?"

"Listen, if you're gonna be worried about something, worry about the car. This thing was _not_ made for chases."

"Super…"

"But if we can make it over the dam, we can get to the highway entrance. Once we're there, I can really gun it!"

They reached the turn.

Dawn turned and saw the Doppelganger right on their tail.

"Here we go!" she heard Ying screaming.

The world pitched again and suddenly they were in the forest. Dawn saw the Doppelganger try to stop, but she was going too fast. She slid right past the entrance to the road.

Dawn turned back around and tried to hold on to her lunch as the car hurtled down a serpentine path.

After a few minutes, Dawn spotted the bridge over the dam.

"Almost there!" Ying yelled.

Dawn turned around, it was dark, no streetlights at all. Even so...

"I don't see her! I think we've shaken her!"

Ying started laughing. "We made it! We made it!"

There was another thunderous crack. Dawn turned and looked through the driver's window.

The doppelganger came exploding out of the trees.

"Oh shi-"

She hit them full-on, slamming into the side of the car. Suddenly everything was spinning.

Dawn heard someone screaming. It seemed like it was her. Her and Ying.

Then they were in the air. Then they were not.

By the flash of the headlights, dawn saw a tree for a millisecond.

Then the passenger side airbag unfolded before her like a flower, and the whole world was white.

Then pain blossomed, and the whole world was black.


	17. Chapter 17

" _Daddy, watch me!"_

" _Dawn!" Buffy cried._

The annual Summers family skiing trip. Once upon a time. A world of white.

Red dripped down onto the white. It spread like plague through the innocent. Destroying that purity.

" _Blood," her sister said, pressing wound to wound, "Summers blood...it's just like mine…"_

Blood?

What?

Dawn blinked. What was she looking at? Red on white. Blood dripping down onto the sheets.

" _Pinch your nose and hold your head back," Buffy said._

No...wait...that was years ago. Where was she?

Pain drove down into her skull like a railroad spike.

"Ah," she groaned. Dawn slowly lifted her head up.

She was staring at a white airbag. There were several red stains on it. Blood.

_Drip…_

Dawn blinked as another drop fell onto the airbag.

_Is it my blood?_

She touched her forehead, flinched with a gasp. Her fingertips came back red.

_Where am I?_

She gazed around an unfamiliar car. A middle-aged east-asian woman was slumped over in the driver's seat.

Dawn stared at her. She saw the woman draw a breath.

_Who...Emma Ying._

Like a stretched rubber band, her memory snapped back into place.

"Oh god." Dawn fumbled with her seat belt. A click and it came free, springing back to the door. Dawn reached for Ying, paused. She couldn't remember, what did she do in this situation?

_A car crash...you're not supposed to move them, right?_

Maybe ordinarily, but they had a psychotic killer after them wearing her sister's face. Dawn pawed at the door handle until it popped open. Pains and stinging all over her body made it harder to notice any one particular injury.

She staggered out into the night.

Dawn looked around by light of the moon. Her heart started to race. Where was the doppelganger? Nowhere to be found.

_Was she thrown somewhere from the force of the crash?_

It was too much to hope it was gone. Dawn had seen enough horror movies to know that whenever the monster vanished suddenly, it was going to reappear behind you.

Dawn spun around. Nothing. Dawn licked her lips. Tasted blood.

She raced around to the other side of the car and pulled the door.

Locked.

Clamping down on a frustrated scream, Dawn ran back around to her door. He eyes darted from one side to the other, expecting an attack to come flying out of any corner.

Her breath came fast and rough as she searched for the electronic lock button with shaking fingers.

_Thunk._

Dawn ran back to the other side and pulled the door open. She reached over and undid Ying's seat belt.

Dawn wasn't very strong, but Ying wasn't very heavy. She managed to pull the woman out of the car, but she couldn't do much more than start dragging her away.

Was that gasoline she was smelling? Or was that her imagination.

Dawn pulled them both deeper into the treeline.

_Hide us,_ she thought, as if the forest would hear.

Suddenly, Dawn grunted as she tripped backwards over a protruding root. She hit the ground. Lifting herself to a sitting position, Dawn brushed dirt off her cheek and looked up. She could see a few rays of moonlight through the canopy.

_Now what am I going to do?_

Dawn felt pretty okay, all things considered. Some scrapeage, doubtless bruises later. But it didn't seem like anything serious. No heavy bleeding as far as she could tell, didn't seem like she had a concussion.

Though would she really know? But Ying still hadn't woken up. Dawn needed to get her to a hospital. But how?

Dawn looked back down.

It stood there, white gown luminous in the moonlight. Its golden hair shimmered around it like a halo.

Dawn reached for the tree she'd tripped over, wrapped hands around it, used it to pull herself up.

Dawn stepped forward, putting herself between Ying and the Doppelganger. About as pointless as pointless gestures got.

"I won't let you kill her," Dawn said.

The doppelganger didn't laugh, didn't mock her, didn't say anything. It gave no indication it had heard, that it even knew Dawn was there. It started forward.

Dawn knelt and felt around in the dark earth. Her hands closed around a stone.

"Stay back!" Dawn threw the stone with all her strength, feeding her cry, her fear, her anger, into it. The stone shot forward.

The Doppelganger did nothing. The stone bounced off its shoulder. It kept coming forward.

Dawn continued searching, rummaging in the dirt for any weapon she could use.

The Doppelganger was standing over her now. Dawn stopped looking for a weapon and glared up at it, getting ready to throw herself at its legs if she had to. Grapple it, bite it, do whatever she could get away with before this thing killed her.

And it would. There was no doubt about that. Fine. Dawn had been living on borrowed time anyway. But she'd go down fighting, like Buffy did.

_If I do...if I go out like this, will you be waiting for me, in the place warriors go, Buffy?_

Dawn grit her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her fist held another stone.

"Well?" she said, voice shaking. "Are you gonna make a move or not? Come get a piece of the Summers ya faker!"

The doppelganger stared down at her with it's annoying, vacant expression. The stake came up.

_Now!_ Dawn lunged at it, crying out in fury.

There was a tremendous gust of wind and the Doppelganger vanished from in front of her. Dawn's heroic charge ended with her falling face first onto the ground with an earthy thud and an "umph".

The night echoed with a loud _crack!_

"Ow," Dawn said, lifting her head up and turning it to the side. She started to laugh. "Were you waiting for the most 'movie' entrance you could manage?"

Standing in front of her with his back turned, was Clark.

He turned and bent over her. "Dawn! Jeez, are you okay?"

Dawn snorted. "Dumb frickin' question, I think…"

With Clark's help, she got to her feet. When Dawn looked she saw the Doppelganger also getting to her feet next to a felled tree. Apparently Clark had smacked her into a tree so hard it had cracked and fallen backwards into the waiting arms of its sister trees.

Clark stepped forward again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Oh, you know...peachy with a side of keen...Ms. Ying, though…" Dawn looked down at the unconscious woman. What was it again? If you were knocked out for longer than five minutes you were at risk of brain damage or something? She couldn't remember.

How long had it been?

"Dawn...I've-"

"-don't worry, I know. Do what you gotta do. I'll be cheering for ya."

Clark nodded as he faced down the doppelganger. They watched each other like a mongoose facing a cobra.

"When it starts," Clark said, "tried to get Ms. Ying back to the road. Trying to escape through the forest at night...you're probably just going to get lost. Do your best to make your way back to town. If someone comes by, flag 'em."

"Yeah, yeah. You just worry about round three. Leave the rest to me."

Clark nodded, and then without warning, it started again. They vanished from her sight, devolving into vague blurs of shape in the darkness.

The forest was rent by cacophony. Their passage tore the underbrush, and the hammer of their blows thundered through the woods as they struck each other. Trees all around groaned and collapsed as they were caught as collateral.

The birds all rose in a terrified shrieking, winging through the air as the battle startled them awake. Every animal not fortunate enough to fly fled on foot, crying their myriad cries in distress.

Dawn ran for the road, dragging the poor, abused Ms. Ying along.

_Sorry, sorry, sorry,_ Dawn thought every time she dragged Ying over a root or a rock.

She made her way to the road. She heard something and turned to the side. Out in the distance, by the floodlights on the damn, she could see two dim figures. Even from here she could differentiate them by height.

Dawn stopped and stared. At the house she hadn't really been able to see anything. Now though, she could see them darting back and forth too fast for her eyes to track properly. Each time they collided they would both fly apart with the force of it. Dawn swore she could hear the collisions and blows form here.

Her heart raced when one such exchange sent Clark dangerously close to the edge of the railing that would send him over the dam's steep side.

They came together and separated, came together and separated again. Then they locked together, fighting for control. Even then they were in motion, running and wheeling while grappled.

_Come on, Clark!_

They hit the ground and started a rolling struggle.

_Take her-it, take it down!_

They were on their feet again. Clark stepped back, closer to the fall. He stepped back again.

_No...fight back!_

Suddenly, Clark dropped his arms, interlocked with the Doppelganger's. Without the resisting force, the Doppelganger surged forward. She tried to stop herself, but Clark fed on her momentum. He jumped back, pulling her along.

Together, they plunged over the side.

"CLARK!"

Dawn let go of Ms. Ying. She was running. All the pains in her body vanished from her mind.

"Clark!"

She felt like she would never get there. But before she knew it, she was at the railing, staring out over a yawning chasm between two mountains.

"Clark!" she screamed at the darkness.

" _Clark!"_

Her voice echoed down and back. The darkness had swallowed her friend, and now it was mocking her.

"Clark!" she screamed.

" _Clark!"_ the darkness echoed back. He was gone.

Dawn sank down. She turned and leaned her back against the railing. She pulled her knees up and put her head between them.

_But it makes a certain kind of sense, doesn't it? People protecting me seem doomed to fall to their death._

If she had it happen one more time, she'd make it a hat trick.

Here on the dam, between the two mountains, a wind blew off the river being held back by a wall of concrete. The chaos of the forest had died down. Now all was deathly silence.

Dawn got up. Ying still needed her. She walked back on stiff legs, each movement mechanical. She pulled the poor woman along towards the dam. At the other end was a squat little shack. Dawn assumed it was related to servicing the dam. Maybe there would be a phone in there.

She thought of nothing but the whistling wind. The door was locked, but it was nothing complicated. Dawn fished her tools out of her pocket and popped it open. Inside there were several mechanical consoles she ignored in favor of the phone on the wall.

She called an ambulance.

"There's been a car crash up near the dam."

Then Dawn waited. Ying still hadn't woken up. Dawn wondered if she ever would.

She stared at several blinking lights and readouts on the consoles and control panels. They didn't mean anything.

Maybe a minute passed. Maybe an hour. Maybe a year. But eventually they came. Dawn heard the sirens.

"Okay," Dawn said, "guess that's my cue."

She turned to Miss Ying. "Sorry. I thought...I mean...Buffy would have done a better job. I'm sorry she wasn't here. I'm sorry I-"

Dawn bit her lip. She tasted blood again. Something had reopened.

Dawn turned and left, making sure the ambulances missed her. Maybe she shouldn't have. Maybe she needed to be in one of them, getting taken to the hospital where they could check her for internal bleeding, or concussion, or whatever. Maybe she didn't give a damn.

_What am I gonna tell his parents?_

Nothing, right? Rule one was keep the World of Darkness a secret from the Muggles.

Except his parents were kinda in the know, right? They knew he wasn't human...and didn't she _have_ to tell them? She couldn't possibly just leave them like that, never knowing what happened to him.

Wait, where _was_ she?

Dawn looked around. She'd gone down the opposite road, leading farther away from town because she had been trying to avoid the ambulances.

_God Damn it!_

She sighed and turned around, trudging back.

_How much time before sunrise? The Scoobies will know I'm gone for sure._

Whatever. Who cared?

Dawn walked back, keeping her head down, her eyes on the road. She felt the trees on either side closing in, suffocating. But she wouldn't break down. She was done with that.

_What would Buffy do?_

What Buffy always did. March on.

Dawn was nearing the dam again. No sign of the ambulances. Good, if they'd already taken Ying, she should be free and clear all the way back to town.

As Dawn got closer to the dam, she looked up.

"...no way."

She started running again. She sprinted so hard she was sure she'd pull something.

"Clark!"

Dripping wet from head to toe, clothes torn, shoes _gone_ , Clark turned to her. By now she was close enough to see his smile.

She skidded to a halt a few feet from him, staring at him. She felt her eyes grow hot again. Everything started to grow blurry and wet.

"Hey," he said, still smiling.

"Hey? _Hey?_ "

"Uh…"

Dawn broke into a run again, and tackled him.

"Whoa! Dawn, I don't really-"

"-shut up!"

He shut up.

"Your clothes are making my face wet," she said.

"...right, sorry."

Eventually he settled a hand on her shoulder to steady her shaking body.

"I'm okay, Dawn. I'm okay."

He gently pried her off him.

Dawn looked up at his smiling face.

"Let's go home," he said.

**Author's Note:** Fun fact, the Sunnydale Dam appears in the season six episode "As You Were". It is never mentioned before, and never mentioned again. The dam used in the shot is actually the Pacoima Dam, which has a height of 371 feet.

Also my geography is a little different. The Pacoima Dam is between two big cliffs, but not really near any forests. Oh well.

I feel like we're a little past halfway done with the story too, guys. Look forward to it. See ya.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's note:** Guys, I've been _devastated_ all month by the death of Leonard Cohen. There are no words.

* * *

Dawn fell to her hands and knees on someone's lawn. "I'm gonna hurl."

Clark gave her some breathing room. "Sorry. I can go as fast as a car, faster than most cars really, but I wasn't built to carry people."

"Obviously. Now I know what a magic eight ball feels li- ugh."

Clark winced. "Sorry...but, nausea aside, are you...did I hurt you?"

Dawn snorted. Unfortunately she was still dry heaving, so it came off less as an amused reassurance and more as a braying donkey mid-seizure.

When the ground felt solid under her once again, Dawn turned over and sat on the edge of the lawn, feet on the sidewalk. She instantly fell onto her back in the grass.

The manic energy of life and death that had come and gone and come and gone that night was expended.

The earth beneath Dawn felt soft enough to sink into forever.

_Laying down now is only gonna make getting up harder,_ she thought. But she didn't move.

"I'm fine, Clark. Besides, everything currently hurts more than a little, so I don't think I'd notice." Now that she'd called attention to them, Dawn's every muscle twanged like out of tune guitar strings.

Clark sighed and sat down next to her at Dawn's insistence. "It's dangerous, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, you told me that back at the dam, but you _also_ didn't have a better idea." Dawn gazed up into the black sea between the stars. She felt like she was falling, both forward and back. Forward into the night sky, backward into the earth.

Either way, it was getting hard to stay here.

Her eyelids flickered. They'd gained twenty pounds, heavy with the darkness and the silence.

Clark rubbed his hands together. "Still, let's not make a habit of it. Even going slowly as I was, a misstep or sharp turn could seriously hurt you-"

"-I said I got it, jeeze. Don't talk to me like I'm a kid. Newsflash, Clark, we're the same age." A thread of annoyance wrapped around her wrist and kept her from drifting too far.

"I know, I didn't mean it like that. I just want you to be careful."

"What does _that_ mean? I'm careful."

"Are you?" Clark winced. He'd said it without thinking, and regretted it immediately.

Dawn frowned. "What the heck are you talking about?"

"Nothing, sorry."

"No, obviously not nothing." Dawn sat up, mouth slowly opened in shock. "Oh my god! You think I'm useless don't you?"

"What?" Clark gave her an incredulous expression. "Where the heck are you getting that from? I didn't say that at all."

"But you were totally thinking it. I am _not_ useless, Kent!"

"I didn't say-" Clark stopped when he saw Dawn grit her teeth and snap her head away from him. Clark took a long breath and sat back. She wasn't going to hear him now, he'd let her cool off a bit.

Meanwhile, Dawn was struggling to douse the raging Fire.

" _I'm not useless!"_ the Fire roared. _"What's with this kid anyway! He wouldn't even_ be _here if it wasn't for me! These special people with their special powers! They just don't get it! They didn't have to work hard for it! Someone just gave it to them, through birth or mystic destiny! They could never understand things from my perspective! I am not useless!"_

But there was more to the Fire than just heat and light. There was also the Smoke.

" _Aren't you?"_ it whispered. It welled up from within her, thick and oily, black as tar. It wound through her. It filled every crevice it could, and it very gently began to strangle her.

" _What have you done? What have you really done?"_

" _We saved that woman, Emma Ying!" the Fire answered._

" _Did you? Wasn't it Clark doing all the fighting? Wasn't it Clark doing all the saving? What did_ you _do? Didn't you just get captured, again? Didn't you just need to be rescued, again?"_

" _No! I helped! I investigated, I learned things, crucial things!"_

The Smoke rose up and settled in her lungs, making it hard to breathe.

" _Did you? What did you really do? Put on a funny voice and trick some people? What did you learn that Clark couldn't? With his super hearing? With his super vision? With all his other super things that you lack?"_

" _I'm not useless."_

" _Aren't you? Why are you even here? What's the point?"_

" _To help people. I have to help people if I know they're in trouble."_

" _Can you? Have you ever helped anyone? Haven't you only ever distracted Buffy, Clark, Scoobies? Isn't the best way for you to help just getting out of their way?_

The Smoke entered her veins, coiled into her limbs, weighed them down until they were so heavy she wasn't sure she could lift them.

" _Didn't Buffy die because of you? Didn't your mother die because of you? Isn't Clark out here fighting monsters, instead of home with his family, because of you?"_

Dawn hugged her knees to her chest, tucking her head down. She tried to compact herself into a ball. Further, smaller, trying to squeeze herself into nothingness.

The Smoke rose up to her throat. She fought to get words past it.

"Clark, before you said something like you were gonna help me because you thought I'd run off and do it even if you weren't there. What if that weren't true? Would you still want my help?"

Clark stopped his immediate answer before it could escape his mouth. Time seemed to slow for him the way it did whenever he got stressed.

_Of course,_ he wanted to say. But was that really what he should do? If he told her no, would she give up and go home? Wouldn't she be safer that way?

After all, telling lies to protect people was something of a Kent specialty. He could return to the safety of isolation.

All he would need to do was pay the price. Accept the quiet despair of solitude. Would that really be so bad? To be alone again? Maybe it would be hard, but it would be safer, for him and for Dawn. He'd survived in the cold his whole life. It had yet to kill him. He didn't need the warmth to survive.

Clark clenched a fist, hesitating, unsure. Looking for direction, he examined her profile, what little of it he could make out behind the hair that had fallen around her face like a protective curtain.

Survival…

Would that be as far as he went? Was that all he wanted, to survive?

One foot in front of the other, one day after the next. It was easy. So easy, even the animals could do it.

Survival...

"Dawn," Clark said, "don't be a dufus."

Dawn looked up at him, halfway to glaring.

"You told me last night, didn't you?" Clark continued. "I asked you why you wanted to do this, you told me you wanted to help people."

Dawn looked back down. "So what? Is wanting to help enough if you can't do anything? I don't have powers like you or Buffy. I mean, all I really do is get in danger and need rescuing..."

"And so you, what, can't help because you don't have powers? Your efforts are meaningless because you can't lift a tractor? Dawn, it's _easy_ for me to be brave. I'm basically indestructible. You're not. So heading into danger to help people _despite_ the fact that you might get hurt, that takes courage and compassion that I don't know I'd even _have_ if I didn't have powers."

Clark reached a hand for her shoulder, stopped mid-way, hesitating. It hovered there, caught between old instinct and new feelings.

Finally it gently settled there. At his touch, Dawn looked up at him.

"Who knows," Clark said, giving her a warm smile, "maybe if I hang out with you long enough, some of that bravery will rub off on me."

Dawn snorted and turned away so Clark wouldn't see her eyes. When she was back under control she turned back to him. Without warning she leaned forward, arms out.

"Oh," Clark said, "what's happening? Are we having a hug moment? 'Cause I'm not really a-"

"-shhh, shut up, Clark, this is happening."

Dawn leaned against him and Clark awkwardly but his arms around her. He gingerly patted her back as she buried her face into his shoulder.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem."

"You suck at hugs."

"Lack of practice."

Dawn chuckled and broke contact, sitting back in her spot. "You have no idea how much I freaked when you fell off the damn."

"It was pretty crazy from my point of view too."

"You know that dam is like, 400 feet tall right?"

Clark raised an eyebrow and whistled. "That's a new record."

Dawn's brow scrunched together. "Record? Make a habit of jumping off giant structures."

"Not if I can avoid it." Clark looked to the side in that pensive way that usually preceded his silence.

Dawn figured this was another of his unmentionables. But then he started speaking again.

"When I was a kid...well, my parents and I were walking around the fields. That much empty space, they were some of the only places I didn't have to worry too much about people seeing me. My parents would bring a picnic and they would hang out in the shadow of this old grain silo and let me run around."

Clark smiled at the memory, but the smile grew strained.

"The silo had been abandoned after the meteor shower killed the owners. Thing must have been two-hundred feet tall. One time...the last time we ever went there, I decided that I was going to climb it."

"Oh," Dawn said, "oh no."

"Yeah. I remember how windy it was that day. It was the season after all. My parents weren't watching me, and I didn't even think to tell them what I was doing. Not because I thought they'd tell me not to, the thought just never even entered my mind.

"So, up I went, climbing the great concrete tower. I remember pretending I was a knight, steel armor shining, as he climbed up the tower of a wicked wizard to save the kingdom from his terrible curse."

Dawn raised an eyebrow and Clark shrugged.

"I read a lot of _Conan the Barbarian_ as a kid. My dad had a lot of those old pulp serials lying around. _John Carter of Mars,_ _Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers._ Anyway, as I got higher, the wind got stronger. Wind does that. Still, even at that age, I was strong enough to fight it. I managed to make my way to the top. The silo had an aluminum dome covering that would catch the sun and flash at you from a distance.

"What could that be but the evil wizard working his dastardly magic? Anyway, I did it. I made it to the top. The footing was harder up there on the dome, with the wind blowing harder. But it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I was getting ready for my climactic battle when I heard my mom calling me. She'd lost track of me, and when I moved around to the other side of the silo and looked down I saw her looking around for me.

"I called out to her. She didn't hear me the first three times because of the wind and the distance. Then the wind suddenly died down enough for my yelling to reach her. I remember she looked up, and even from way up there I could...I saw the terror on her face."

Clark grimaced and shook his head.

"Then, as she was telling me to get down immediately, as if there really were an evil wizard up there, biding his time, the wind came back. It was stronger than before, and I was distracted. I knocked me right off the edge of the silo before I knew what was happening."

Dawn's eyes grew wide.

"My parents…" Clark said, "they knew even then that I was different, but...they didn't know yet, _how_ different…"

"Oh my god," Dawn said, "they didn't know you'd survive."

" _I_ didn't know I'd survive. But I was young, and thanks to my powers, hadn't really been hurt. The idea of death was way too abstract, so I wasn't really scared. At least, I don't remember being scared, not for myself...but what I do remember, was my mom. She screamed. She screamed my whole way down.

"She was still screaming after I'd hit the ground, which _hurt_ by the way. First time I'd ever gotten that hurt. My dad was the first one to come running over to me. I was stunned, a little bruised...but my mom...I died that day, to her, I think. When I fell from that tower, she was sure I was dead. She felt it in some way that I don't quite understand, felt in her heart that her child was dead.

"I came back, resurrected. But it was too late. My mom knew now, what it was to lose a child, to watch them die. For weeks after that, my mom had nightmares. She'd come bursting into my room in the middle of the night to make sure I was really still there. The wound closed, but I'm not sure the scar ever healed. After that day she always seemed...I don't know, more tired, I guess."

Clark looked away. "I guess that's when I first started to understand it."

"Understand what?"

"That the powers I had, the ones that protected me and kept me safe, they could hurt other people. Even people I cared about."

Dawn didn't know what to say. She looked up into the night sky, hoping some comforting words would be written there.

There were none. She leaned against him again, and he didn't go rigid this time.

"We should get going," Clark said. "We've still got sneak back home."

"And we have class tomorrow. Ugh."

"Plus, this thing doesn't seem to be stopping. There will probably be another attack tomorrow night. We need to work it out fast."

Dawn bit her lip. "Back at Ms. Ying's house...the thing, the Doppelganger, it did something."

Clark raised an eyebrow.

"It sort of...caressed me. What's with that face? It wasn't like in a _weird_ way! I mean...gah. There was this thing that Buffy would always do where she would like stroke my hair. The Doppelganger did _that_ but in like the same way."

Clark frowned. "So...that means it's really her right? Your sister, Buffy…"

Dawn shook her head, but couldn't say the word. "I'm not sure. Crap. Every time I think I've got this damn thing figured I start having doubts. I can't imagine that Buffy would ever do these things. And there's more, something about the way it behaved. It was so….automatic, like mechanical sort of, like it knew which actions and behaviors to take but didn't have an actual feelings about things…"

Dawn huffed. "In the end, it might not matter. I think even if it is Buffy back from the dead, I know she wouldn't want this. I think she'd rather…"

Dawn clenched her fists and stood up, vetoing the protests of every muscular system in her body. "Well, let's get going. We should get what sleep we can. Tomorrow I'm thinking we skip our lunch breaks, hit the computer lab, see if we can't find anything else about the victims on the internet."

Clark nodded and stood himself. The two walked into the night, trying to leave their dark thoughts behind them.


	19. Chapter 19

In the morning, Dawn's sores had sores. She could hear the Scoobies flitting about downstairs, but so far no one had come by to check on her.

Her limbs felt like they were wrapped in lead, but she managed to haul herself out of bed anyway. She double checked that her door was still locked to avoid nasty surprises, then she sat in front of her vanity.

Dawn looked herself over. Considering she had been in a car wreck, things didn't look so bad. Some might notice if she went heavy on the make up, but that was easier to explain or ignore than long scrapes and cuts. A long sleeve hoodie would cover the rest of her body.

She'd have to pull the hood down at school, but if anyone saw the marks on her neck or shoulders she could just say she'd had an accident at home. Once school was done, she could tell the Scoobies she'd had an accident in school.

Her hands were more difficult. She'd need to keep those in her pockets as much as possible to hide the cuts.

As she sat there, examining herself, a thought arced through her like an electric current.

_Did Buffy used to do this,_ Dawn wondered, _back when her Slayerness was a secret?_

She could imagine it. Buffy sitting across from her own vanity just like Dawn, examining every inch of light skin for cuts and bruises. Momentoes from their secret night lives. Hiding them from their families, so that they wouldn't know, so that they wouldn't worry.

Yeah, Dawn could imagine that with ease.

_Well, like sister like sister...or something. Actually, didn't I catch her once?_

She had, she remembered. Back in Los Angeles, when it first started. Dawn had begun to notice something was up. She'd hear Buffy coming and going at odd hours of the night.

At first, she'd thought it was some boy. One day, seated at the round living room table, eating cereal, Dawn saw Buffy. Her sister had stretched up, preferring to reach for a clean bowl higher up on the cupboard rather than just wash a dirty one. As she stretched, Buffy's pink blouse pulled up over her midriff, and Dawn gasped at an ugly black bruise.

Buffy was quick to hide it as soon as she heard Dawn's gasp. Dawn wouldn't let it go though, Dawn bombarded her sister with questions about the bruise, powering through Buffy's every attempt at deflection.

Eventually, Buffy snapped. She grabbed Dawn by the shoulders, her grip hard enough that Dawn whined that Buffy was hurting her. Buffy stared her right in the eye, voice low and harsh, and made her promise to never say anything to mom or dad.

Dawn agreed out of fear, and as soon as Buffy let go, Dawn called her a stupid buttface. As far as Dawn was concerned, that was not an insult, it was just part of Buffy's scientific nomenclature.

She'd thought about telling their parents anyway, out of spite. But beside the anger was another feeling. She had something now, with her sister. Something between just the two of them. A secret they shared. They hadn't really shared anything in a long time. Since Buffy had become a teenager, it seemed like she was farther away from Dawn every day.

Buffy had stopped wanting to play with her, stopped wanting to watch tv shows Dawn wanted to watch, didn't even speak to her as much as they had before.

But then she had that secret, and there was something between them again. Even through the annoyance and the fear, it had felt a little warm.

Dawn stopped brushing her hair and set the dark brush on the vanity table as she pulled herself out of her memories.

_Buffy at least had her Slayer healing to help her out,_ Dawn thought as she stared into the mirror.

She could feel tears coming. She grit her teeth and placed a hand over her eyes.

_How weak. None of that stuff ever even really happened? How dumb am I, getting upset over fake memories? That's just stupid._

Dawn got up and threw herself back on he bed. Maybe she'd gotten up too early after all. She glanced at her nightstand. The white cordless was still there.

Without thinking she reached for it. She rolled over on her bed and dialed.

"Kent residence, this is Clark."

"Are you gonna ask me if I know my party's extension?"

"Good morning, Dawn."

"Who answers a phone like that?"

"Ah, well, a big city-slicker like yourself wouldn't understand ma'am, but where I come from, we country folk put much stock in the way of manners." Clark spoke in a slow, exaggerated drawl.

Dawn snickered. Then, changing her voice, she said _"You're a conceited, black- hearted varmint, Clark Kent, and I don't know why I let you come and see me."_

"What was...was that Vivien Leigh in _Gone with the Wind_? That was spot on."

Dawn grinned and sniffed. "Well of course. You know I was an L.A. girl, Mr. Kent. I've basically been marinating in a stew of acting talent since I was a baby-child. I'm surprised you've even seen _Gone with the Wind_. You know, on account of you being a boy and everything."

"Please do remember that I'm not human, and am therefore immune to transmission of cooties, which science has definitively proven, girls carry. So I have no need to fear girly things. I'm still pretty impressed. But is that all you got?"

"Hah." Dawn cleared her throat. When she spoke again her voice was lower, smooth and mournfully sultry. _"Brick...I get so lonely...living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, when the one you love doesn't love you. You can't even stand drinking out of the same glass, can ya_?"

There was silence on the line as Clark thought. " _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?_ "

"Oh, okay, not bad Kent. But I went easy on you. Ten points."

"Wait, what? There are points now?"

"Duh, there can be no victory without points."

"Oh is that right? Okay then, Summers, let's see what you've got."

Dawn lost track of how long the impersonation game lasted, but when she glanced at her clock again, she shot upright.

"Oh crap, I got to start getting ready!"

"Same...feeling any better?"

Dawn blinked, then snorted and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Sneaky bastard."

"Only on behalf of the greater good."

"Are you sure your rolodex of superpowers doesn't have a 'telepathy card'? But yes, I'm better now, thanks."

"Are you gonna tell your friends about what we've learned so far?"

Dawn looked to her closed door and bit her lip. "I...no, no I won't. If we figure out something really concrete, a for 100% sure suspect...I'll tell them then."

"Okay, if you're sure that's the right move-"

"-well, 'sure' is such a strong word."

"Either way, I'll see you at lunch."

"Yeah...and thanks again."

Dawn hung up and swung her legs down to the floor. The night loomed in her future with its promise of fear and death to come. She couldn't let more of the day go to waste.

* * *

Clark and Dawn walked into the computer lab during their lunch hour. There were a handful of students fretfully trying to finish homework assignments due later that day. Together, the duo made their way to a corner cubicle away from everyone else. Dawn took the control chair and Clark pulled up another next to her.

"Okay," Dawn said as she logged into the computer, "what's our next move? Should we just start random searches for the vics?"

"Well, we're basically out of leads, so yes."

Nearly half an hour of searching proved fruitless.

Dawn groaned. "This is getting us nowhere. If anything we've expanded our list of suspects."

"Yeah," Clark said, "Everything on Chris Palumbo shows he has a knack for ticking people off."

"This other guy, this Professor William Wescott, kind of a jerk too." Dawn said. "I found a few chat threads about people discussing their college Professors, apparently this guy had a tendency to sleaze it up with female students."

Clark's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Bribery and Sexual Harassment. Nice, sounds like him and Palumbo were a match made in...well, somewhere other than heaven."

"It gets better, Wescott is a professor of Ethics."

Clark shook his head. "If it were less depressing, I'd laugh. Okay, looks like our list of potential suspects is just under 'the entire town of Sunnydale'."

Dawn leaned back in her chair, frowning at the screen. "We must be missing something. Some forgotten piece of info, or some unconsidered angle."

"Maybe, but I think we may have exhausted our internet help, at least until we can get enough information for a more targeted search." Clark said.

Dawn looked up. "Well, guess we'll just have to do a little more hands-on work, right?"

Clark frowned. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"I mean, we need to get to the crime scenes and check them out."

"What? That's super illegal."

"It's the best way, Clark. Do you have a better idea?"

"...well, no but...what if we get caught?"

"We'll go at night so that- oh shoot." Dawn grimaced. "We can't go at night, can we? If the Doppelganger sticks to pattern, it'll be out for the kill again tonight."

Dawn turned back and stared at the screen. After thinking it over, her eyes grew determined. She turned back to Clark. "Only one thing to do. We have to go during the day, right after school."

Clark stared at her, then sighed. "I just know I'm going to regret this."

"Oh c'mon, Clark," Dawn said as she grinned and jabbed Clark in the arm, "what's a little felony B & E between friends?"

* * *

Clark and Dawn found each other through the throngs of students pouring out of the school.

"Okay," Dawn said, "you said you passed by Wescott's on your way to school, right?"

Clark nodded.

"Good, then it's nearby. We'll head there first and check it out, then if we don't find anything there, we'll head to Palumbo's house."

"Um, yeah...about that. We might have a bit of a speed-bump."

"Speed-bump? What do you mean?"

Clark nodded to the side and Dawn turned. She swept around with her eyes, eventually finding the problem Clark had been trying to point out.

A tall, dark haired man leaning on a car parked in the pickup zone, his own eyes scanning the crowd of students, doubtless looking for her.

It was Xander Harris.

"Shoot," Dawn said. "Okay, quick, let's use the crowd as cover and try to sneak- oh crap, he's seen me."

Xander's eyes met Dawns and he started moving toward them.

"What do we do?" Clark asked.

"Hold on, don't panic, just let me do the talking. Relax, it'll be fine, I'll handle it."

"I'm not-"

"-seriously, Clark, stop panicking! I said I got this."

Clark shut his mouth and shrugged.

Dawn took a long, steadying breath. On the exhale, she started to walk forward, pressed from all sides by student bodies, mind working furiously at the wheel to spin a yarn she could sell.

She felt her pulse quicken when Xander approached. That used to happen all the time, but for different reasons.

Dawn smiled. "Hey, Xander. What are you doing here?"

Xander smiled back. "Yo, Dawn Corleone. I'm here to take you home."

Her pulse quickened again. She felt the smile falter, struggled to hold it in place. She flipped her hair over her shoulder with her hand. "Oh yeah? Um...I kinda need to go to Clark's house right now."

Xander frowned and he looked up. His eyes narrowed when they found Clark standing back near the school.

Xander motioned with his head and Dawn followed him off to the side.

_Not that it helps,_ Dawn thought, _we may be way outside of earshot for a human, but not for Clark._

"Dawn," Xander said, "why do you need to go to that kid's house?"

"Hey, Xander, don't be rude. He's my friend, what's up with you?"

"There's something...off, about that kid. My finely tuned Sunnydale instincts are going off around him, let me tell you."

Dawn's mouth felt dry. She resisted the urge to lick her lips. "Well, Xander, whatever your instincts are saying, I _need_ to finish this project with him, so there's nothing for it."

"I thought you did that yesterday."

"We _worked_ on it, but we didn't _finish_ it, no."

"Hm, well...I guess you guys will just have to finish it at your place."

Dawn's eyes grew wide. "What, why?"

_Careful,_ she reminded herself, _don't seem desperate._

"Because," Xander said, "I don't want you out alone while this...thing is out there."

"Wha- but you left me alone at Clark's yesterday and you left me at school today."

Xander looked one way then the other, like he thought they were being watched. "Well that was before. Now though, we've found out some stuff. The two dead guys, a Professor Wescott and Chris Palumbo, Buffy had a class with both of them. This thing might be going after people Buffy knew."

Dawn frowned. "Xander, this is a small town. Connections like that happen all the time by pure coincidence. You'd need to go to a rubber band department store to find a bigger stretch."

"Still, we want you close to us as much as possible, just in case, for your safety."

Dawn glared, and almost snarled at him. "For my safety, or because you don't trust me not to go running off again?"

_Which, to be fair, is exactly what I'm trying to do,_ she thought. But she played up the hurt routine.

Xander sighed. "Oh come on, Dawnster. Don't do this to me. Don't make me play the 'authority figure' card. I think my hand might shrivel up and fall off if I do. But I will if I have to. Now come on, we can stop by Kent's house and pick up the stuff, you guys can finish at your place."

Dawn glared at him a little longer before sharply turning and storming off towards Clark.

_Crap,_ she thought the whole way there. _Crap, crap crap._

Only a few hours till sunset. Her mind raced.

_Now what are we gonna do?_


	20. Chapter 20

Clark shifted in his seat as he felt Mr. Harris' glare on him from the rearview mirror. Clark didn't turn to face it, preferring to just stare out the window at the passing houses.

Dawn sat in the passenger seat in front of him, occasionally sighing audibly and shooting pointed looks at Mr. Harris, who ignored them. The totally fake but still well done biology project sat next to Clark.

They'd gotten it from his house after leaving the school and Clark was once more thankful he'd had the foresight to spend ten minutes of his day working on it for appearances sake.

Still, it was a little depressing. It was rather nice for a project no one was ever going to grade him on. When this whole insanity finished, he'd probably keep it, just in case.

They pulled up in front of a large white house. 1630 Revello Drive. As he got out of the car, Clark could hear people talking inside. Three young women, and an older British man.

The white pathway leading from the street was flanked on either side by a small menagerie of plants, bushes, and trees so that from the street the house seemed half hidden by a curtain of green.

The canopy of tall trees around it cast shade over the front yard, broken by speckles of sunlight. Light and dark shifted and danced over the house as the branches swayed in the breeze.

As they approached the front porch, they passed through a gap in a long row of hedges that disappeared around the house in both directions.

"Nice house," Clark said.

"Thanks," Dawn said. "I don't know what we're gonna do about all these plants though."

Dawn stopped at her doorstep and looked around. She had a wistful smile. "Mom was the one with the green thumb."

"It's not so hard," Clark said, stepping aside to let Mr. Harris by to open the door. "They're kinda like people. They just need a little attention, and a little affection."

"Well," Dawn said as Clark followed her into the house, "Clark, welcome to Casa de Summers."

"Xander," a soft voice called out from another room further back. Clark heard approaching footsteps. He saw Mr. Harris grow tense, his mouth opening as if to issue a warning.

"You're back, listen, I think that we narrowed down the demons we might be dealing whi-"

A tall, shapely, blonde woman walked into view and froze as soon as she saw Clark. She was dressed conservatively. Her colors were very deep and earthy, a simple long sleeved blouse and a long skirt that fell to her ankles.

Clark heard her heart rate spike, saw her eyes dart from him, to Dawn, to Mr. Harris.

"Um," she said, "u-uh, what I m-meant to say was… I mean, by d-demon-"

"-uh, hold on, Tara." Mr. Harris jumped in and rushed to the woman's side. He gave an incredibly forced laugh and looked at Clark. "What Tara meant to say by 'demon'...well, I mean, it wasn't like _demon_ demon. No that'd uh...that'd be silly. We're not like weirdos or anything."

His eyes darted around, then shot pleadingly to the blonde woman, who just quavered.

"Demonstration!" Mr. Harris suddenly shouted, causing his friend to jump. "Demonstration...that's what Tara was trying to say. She was trying to tell me that she had narrowed down the type of _demon_ stration we were dealing with."

"Oh," Clark said. And really, that should have been the end of it. Clark was not now, and had never been a petty or vindictive person. He should have just left it alone and let them think they'd kept their secret. So what if Mr. Harris had been glaring at him all the way here and had done nothing but display unprovoked hostility and overprotectiveness? Clark Kent believed in forgiveness.

On the other hand, he might also have been spending too much time around Dawn Summers, because his next words were "What kind of demonstration are you dealing with?"

Mr. Harris' mouth gaped open a little. "Well…" he said. He clasped his hands together in front of him, almost like in prayer, and his eyes darted around the house's little main entrance corridor.

"Wood," he finally said.

"Wood?" Clark asked.

"Yes, a demonstration on wood. Various types of woods. There are really just...so many of them. I mean, there's mahogany...and um, red...red wood…"

"Teak," the blonde woman squeaked next to him.

"Teak," Mr. Harris said, nodding. "Teak exists…"

He coughed. "You see, Clark, I'm in construction...so I have a lot of...wood things that I need to have...demonstrated…"

"Hm." Clark said. The two writhed and wriggled under his steady gaze. He turned to the woman. "And you're in construction too?"

"Yes," she said automatically.

"No," Mr. Harris said at the same time.

They shot each other a quick look and both started trying to talk over the other at once.

"What I meant is-"

"Well what she means is-"

They both stopped again. Mr. Harris let out a stunted, painful laugh. "Well, you see Clark...she...I mean, it's a funny story, cause it's like a 'yes' and a 'no' at the same time."

"Oh?" Clark said. "I love a funny story."

Mr. Harris looked like he'd swallowed a toad. Clark could see beads of sweat starting to form.

"Well," Mr. Harris said, licking his lips repeatedly, "Uh, it's funny because...she _is_ in construction...but uh, not in the actuall...she doesn't build things. She's a um…"

"Architect," the woman said.

"Yes, architect! She designs the various… the architectures and the…and then I build them...um-"

"-with wood. I just uh...love me some wood." The woman cringed.

"Yes, with wood, sometimes...uh, sometimes also, not with wood…"

"Oh," Clark said. He turned again to the young woman. "So you're an architect?"

"Uh," she smiled. Tried to anyway. It seemed like some connection in her brain misfired or she forgot which muscles went where. Her mouth did a strange, spasmed contortion. She quickly wiped her hands on her long skirt.

"Y-yeah…" the woman said in a voice almost too soft for human ears.

"Hm…" Clark said, nodding slowly. "Cool."

The two adults breathed out a slow sigh of relief when suddenly another woman walked into the room from behind them.

"Hey guys," she said, voice high and bubbly, "I think I figured out a spell we can use to track down the demon. It' a bit advanced though, lots of invoking the Lords of the Outer Powers, channeling of the Ancient Towers and stuff like that, some I'm thinking it's gonna be a whole big group dealio."

This new woman froze when she saw Clark. She was much shorter, with hair a deep red, and much more colorful and unrestrained clothing.

"Uh…" she said.

Mr. Harris and Ms. Tara looked at her like she'd dropped the good china.

"Willow," Mr. Harris said, "this is Dawn's classmate, Clark Kent. Clark, this is Willow Rosenberg."

Clark nodded. "A pleasure. What was all this about a spell for a demon?"

"Well…" Ms. Rosenberg began. Her eyes darted to from Mr. Harris to Ms. Tara.

"What she meant," Mr. Harris said, "was uh...it's not _spell_ like magic or anything, which isn't real, obviously. It uh, it means-"

"-spelling?" Ms. Tara provided

"Yes, spelling. We need to make sure that we're...spelling the wood properly...for the demonstration. And the 'Lords of the Outer Powers' is...that's just what Willow calls upper management, right Willow?"

Mr. Harris gave Ms. Rosenberg a pointed glare. Ms. Rosenberg blinked

"Um...yes?" she squeaked.

At that moment a tall, older gentleman in glasses and a tweed suit walked in.

Mr. Harris heard the man's heavier footsteps and wheeled as if to attack a new foe.

"Giles," Mr. Harris practically screamed, "Giles this is Dawn's classmate, Clark Kent. Clark, this is Mr. Giles."

Mr. Giles blinked at suddenly being shouted at. He gave Mr. Harris the withering look one gives when they are used to another's crazy behavior. Then he gave Clark a polite smile and approached to shake his hand.

"How do you do, Mr. Kent?" He spoke in a british accent.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Giles."

"Giles," Mr. Harris said, "we were just telling Clark here about construction, and about how the three of us do it, and also have _demon_ strations on wood that need _spell_ ing...and about how we definately do _not_ fight demons or anything like that, right, Giles?"

Mr. Giles simply stared at them. Then he turned around and walked away.

Mr. Harris forced out a harsh laugh. "That's Giles for ya. He's got a sense of humor that just...it takes some getting used to."

"Hm." Clark said. "So, just to make sure I'm clear on the introduction you just gave me, this is a house full of carpenters and architects, and you're all going to be dealing with demonstrations on wood, which you sometimes use to build things, but sometimes don't. You seem to be worried about making sure you spell things correctly, and you call upper management, the 'Lords of the Outer Powers. Correct?"

Ms. Rosenberg's eyes darted from Mr. Harris to Ms. Tara, wide with bewilderment.

Ms. Tara minutely examined the wood paneling of the floor, her long hair falling over her face like a veil.

Mr. Harris appeared to be trying to swallow a rock for a few seconds. Then he managed a smile so strained it looked like it might break his face in half.

"Yes," he managed, "that's exactly right."

"Hm." Clark said. Well, it was probably about time to wrap this up and throw them a bone. Besides, if it went on any longer, poor Dawn, red in the face and trembling next to Clark from trying not to laugh, was going to asphyxiate.

"So," Clark said, " _that,_ or...you all play tabletop role playing games? Like Dungeons and Dragons and stuff, where you play as warriors or spellcasting wizards who fight demons and such?"

All three adults breathed a long sigh of relief and Mr. Harris laughed.

"Yes," he said, pointing emphatically at Clark. "That is _exactly_ what we do. We play Dungeons and Dragons, where we fight monsters for _pretend_. We just didn't want to say anything because, you know we were a little embarrassed…"

"Hey, I think it's pretty cool," Clark said.

"Yep," Dawn said, smirking widely. "That's my people, buncha nerds."

"Nerd is the highest word of praise in my vocabulary," Clark said. Then, unable to resist one more dig, he asked "and Mr. Giles?"

Mr. Harris' smile grew strained again. "He...is our-"

"-Dungeon Master," Ms. Rosenberg added.

"Yep...our Dungeon Master. He is definitely the most knowledgeable of us all about uh...monsters and such. He just doesn't like to advertise it because he's all old and stuff. That's why if you ask him about it later, he'll pretend he doesn't know what you're talking about."

"Okay," Clark said.

"Because it's a secret," Mr. Harris said, "not because it's a lie.

Clark nodded. "Yes, I understand the concept."

Mr. Harris sighed in relief. "Good, now that that's settled-"

There was a loud crunch as someone bit into an apple. Another woman walked in, also shorter, hair dyed a platinum blonde, munching slowly with a vibrant Granny Smith in hand. The other three stared at her in horror.

Before any of them could intercept her, she said "what's this about a dungeon? We torturing somebody? Count me in, staring at old books all day is definitely making me blind."

She spied Clark. "Who the heck are you?"

"Anya," Mr. Harris squeezed through grit teeth, "this is Clark Kent, Dawn's classmate. Dawn's very _average_ and _normal_ classmate."

"Hm," Anya said. "He her boyfriend?"

"No!" Mr. Harris and Dawn yelled at the same time.

"Afraid not," Clark said.

Anya shrugged. "Too bad, he's hot. Shame about the wardrobe."

And with that she walked out of the room.

Mr. Harris, Ms. Rosenberg, and Ms. Tara all seemed to sag with exhaustion.

Clark turned to Dawn. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

Dawn looked him up and down. "Unless you're gonna move in, I do not have the time to walk you through that one."

Clark huffed. "Well, I guess we should get started?"

"Yep," Dawn said leading Clark away from the three poor adults in the corridor.

* * *

"I don't like him."

Clark could hear Mr. Harris speaking to the others in the dining room.

"What?" Ms. Rosenberg asked. "Why not?"

"Xander," Mr. Giles said, "quiet down and get back to work."

"Guys," Mr. Harris said, "I'm telling you there's something up with that kid."

Ms. Rosenberg made a small noise of disbelief. "Xander, the heck are you talking about?"

"I...I mean, it's not like I can point to anything specifically, but I'm telling ya, my instincts are going off on this one. There's something not right with him. I can feel it!"

Mr. Giles snorted. "Honestly, I think you're just using this as an excuse to avoid research."

Mr. Harris gasped. "Giles, how dare you say that? Guys,I'm trying to look out for Dawn here, okay? She's the one that's in trouble from this guy."

"Oh," Ms. Rosenberg said, "that's what it is. Xander, come on. Dawn already said they weren't dating."

"What? No, that's not what the problem is at all...that's not _only_ what the problem is at all, I'm telling ya, I think this kid is something evil. And _besides,_ Dawn's too young to be dating-"

"-she's fifteen."

"Exactly, Wills. She's fifteen, and _he's_ fifteen. Trust me, having been a fifteen year old boy myself once-"

"-you mean like yesterday and also everyday since you were fifteen?"

"Thank you for the backup, Anya. Anyway, I _know_ this kid's up to no good. Giles, you know what I'm talking about right? Back me up."

There was a long suffering sigh. "Perhaps we should leave off on all the disturbing talk of children having sex and get back to work, you know, fighting the evil that's claimed two lives already?"

"Xander," Ms. Rosenberg said, "Dawn's growing up. She's gonna start dating. If it isn't this kid, it'll be someone else. You're gonna have to come to terms with it eventually."

"What? No I don't. Where the heck is that rule written?"

Ms. Rosenberg groaned.

"Um, actually…" Ms. Tara, properly Ms. Mclay he'd been told, spoke up. "He does have an...interesting aura."

Clark, who had been in the middle of halfheartedly gluing cutouts onto a posterboard, froze.

"My god," Mr. Harris said, "you hear that Will? An _interesting_ aura!"

"Whoa," Ms. Rosenberg said, "hold on. What does that actually _mean_ , Tara? It's interesting in what way?"

"Um...it's uh...I guess the best way to describe it is, it feels 'heavy', almost sorta like it's solid. It wraps tight around him, like armor...if that makes any sense?"

"Okay…" Ms. Rosenberg said, "...and that means what?"

"Yeah, Tara, is he evil or what?"

"Oh, I don't really know. I've told you guys before, aura reading isn't an exact science. It's all about interpretation. It could just mean that he's a secretive person-"

"-because he's secretly an evil tentacle monster from hell-"

"-Xander, shush," Ms. Rosenberg said.

"Or," Ms. Mclay continued, "maybe it means he's protective...or none of the above."

"Well,"Ms. Rosenberg said, "there you have it, Xander. You've got no evidence, meaning you've got no case.

"Objection!"

"Overruled. Now let's get back to work."

"Thank god," Mr. Giles said.

"Clark!"

Clark blinked at the harsh whisper. He turned to Dawn who was glaring at him.

"What was that, dude? Did you zone out on me?"

"Oh, whoops, yeah, sorry."

Dawn frowned and leaned in a little closer. "Did you hear something?"

Clark shook his head. "Nothing important."

Dawn sighed. "Fine, whatever then. Did you catch any part of what I said."

"Um…"

"Grr, fine. I was _saying_ that we need to get out there and get investigating, and we need to do it fast."

"Yeah, but Mr. Harris is never gonna let us out of his sight. I mean, he wouldn't even let us go up to your room to do the project so he could keep an eye on us in the living room."

Dawn smirked. "Correction, Clark. Xander won't let _me_ out of his sight for very long. I plan to take that obstacle, and turn it to our advantage. Don't worry, Clark. I have a plan, ehehehehe…"

Clark sighed and looked askance.

"What? Clark, what's with that expression?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just whenever you start smiling like that, _I_ usually wind up doing something illegal…"


	21. Chapter 21

"Quick take a left," Dawn said as she pulled Clark down an aisle.

Marion's Art Depot was _the_ spot in Sunnydale for arts and crafts needs.

Its aisles were vast and twisting, clearly not the beneficiary of much central planning, and the air was thick with a pungent, acrylic smell, maybe from dyes, or the fake plants.

It was also located a hop, skip, and a jump away from the former residence/current murder scene of one Christopher Palumbo.

"This plan is insane," Clark said as he was dragged along by this girl a head shorter than him and half at least as thin.

"Relax, Clark, this is gonna work. You just need to zip in there-"

"-into an _active crime scene_ in the middle of the day."

"Don't be dramatic. It's like, early evening at most. I'm sure everyone's gone home by now. Is he still behind us?"

They dodged between some customers.

"We left him a few aisle back. Which, by the way, he's going to be totally suspicious of."

"Hey, you let me worry about Xander, you've got one job." Dawn slowed to a stop to avoid elbowing an old lady pushing her cart along just fast enough to make it to the next aisle in time for the heat death of the universe.

Dawn looked around, picked another, empty aisle, and dragged Clark into it.

She turned to face him, dropping his wrist from her grip.

"Should I tell you all the ways this could go wrong?" he asked.

She held up a finger to his face to silence him. "Never tell me the odds. Clark, is this really any harder than the other stuff we've been doing? I mean, we basically _just_ pulled off the same caper in that Keane chick's place."

Clark's mouth dropped open. "I'm sorry, do you consider that rolling dumpster fire a _success story_? Shall I count the ways? We were five seconds away from getting caught, who knows what evidence we left behind, we had to ju-"

Clark looked around abruptly. Then he lowered his head and leaned in much closer, his voice a harsh whisper. "We had to jump across a freaking street and land in a tree. These do not a success make."

Dawn leaned back, bumping into the rack of foam polygons behind her. "Listen, Clark-" her face twisted and she suddenly leaned in again and sniffed. "What is...are you wearing cologne?"

Clark backed up. "It's my dad's."

"It's nice."

"Uh huh, don't try to deflect-"

"Also, you've gotta stop getting all close and pressing me up against walls and stuff, dude. People are gonna get the wrong idea."

Clark groaned and turned away.

Dawn could see the tips of his ears turning red as he stepped further away from her. She took advantage of that window to smirk at his back, wiping it away as soon as he turned back around.

"Your bodyguard already has the wrong idea."

Dawn frowned. "Huh? Who are you talking about?"

"Mr. Harris-"

"-it's too weird that you call him that-"

"-whatever, he's about ninety percent sure we're up to something."

Dawn's eyes widened. "Oh crap, he suspects us?"

"Um, he definitely suspects us of _something_ , but not what we're doing."

Dawn stared at him. "Oh... _oh._ "

"Yeah, which is the reason, one of the reasons-"

"-that explains why he's been all over us lately. He thinks we're like, sneaking off for smoochies or something."

"...right, which is why-"

"How dare he!" Dawn's eyes were snapping with fury. "Xander may be basically family, but he doesn't get to pick who I date! Even if I were gonna date you, which, no offense Clark-"

"-oh, yeah, don't worry about it. I'm not keen on it either-"

"-he doesn't have any right to disapprove of…" Dawn narrowed her eyes at Clark. "Wait, what do you mean you're not keen on it?"

Clark blinked. "Huh?"

"Why wouldn't you want to date me?"

"Uh...what?"

"That hurts, Kent. I mean like, really cold. Sub Zero."

"What, no! I didn't mean it like that, I was just saying…"

_I would never survive a relationship with you,_ Clark thought. But his common sense had come back from lunch break so he didn't say that.

"...you know, we shouldn't, cause we're friends. Wait, hold on! Don't make this about _this_ , _this_ is not the point. The point is that, right or not, Mr. Harris _is_ appointing himself your romantic watchdog-"

Dawn huffed.

"-which means he is going to be keeping his eyes on us at all times when we're together. He's tearing through the place right now trying to find us. Which is one of the many reasons I'll never be able to sneak off for who knows how long and creep through an active crime scene."

"Clark, look at me. Look me in the eyes. I've been twisting Xander Harris to my whim like a goddamn bendy straw since I was like, nine. I can handle him."

Clark shook his head. "I wonder which comic book supervillain you were in your past life. Either way, that still leaves the fact that my target is under active investigation."

Dawn turned thoughtful. "How long would it take you to get over there?"

"Not sure. Super-speed in broad daylight is risky. Anywhere from one to five minutes."

"And how long would it take to search the house?"

"No clue, especially since I have no idea what I'm looking for."

Dawn bit her lip, crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the floor. "Can you search through the house at super-speed?"

"Not without destroying the place."

Dawn sighed and scratched her head. "Okay, it might be a little more risky than I thought-"

"-thank you-"

"-but we're out of leads, and we're low on time, Clark. Once it's nightfall, it's only a matter of time before that thing comes back out to play. We need all the info we can get."

Clark stared at her, then he sighed, shoulders slumping. "How long can you keep Mr. Harris occupied before he gets suspicious."

"Thirty minutes, maybe forty...will that be enough?"

"It'll have to be." Clark turned and looked down the row of aisles. "He'll be here soon. Time for me to go."

"Right!" Dawn stuck her arm straight out, palm facing down.

Clark stared at the outstretched hand, silently questioning.

"You know, like in football movies. We break on three for the play or whatever."

Clark just shook his head and walked past her.

Dawn's jaw dropped open as she stared at his vanishing back.

"Wow," she said, "just gonna go huh? Just gonna leave me hanging? That's messed up, I thought we were a team. Fine, that's fine, I'll do it myself, I don't care."

She looked around to make sure no one was watching her, then she bobbed her hand up and down.

"One, two, three, break!"

* * *

_Must be nice to have money,_ Clark thought as he jumped Palumbo's gate, easily two and change times his height.

Clark had made it to the house in two minutes, but had spent another paranoid three minutes listening for company.

The house seemed empty, but Clark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

So here he went, alone into the dungeon. The house was large and cubey, very mid-century modern.

Clark ducked under the crime tape over the entrance and stepped inside. The place was done almost like a roman villa. It had three sides with an open atrium in the center which led to a large pool towards the back of the house which overlooked a steep drop off the cliff the house was perched on.

The air was heavy with incense.

Clark moved slowly through the first floor. Not much to go on. Lots of modern art, musical paraphernalia, some pieces that Clark couldn't distinguish as furniture or abstract sculpture.

Clark headed out into the atrium. A large cherry tree sat in the center. The petals rustled with a faint wind.

A lot of sculptures stood in the grass here, done in the roman style. Idealized versions of the nude male form.

Clark walked around it, moved out to the pool.

The water was still tinged with red.

_This is where you died,_ Clark thought.

He moved past it, stepped to the edge of the cliff.

No railing. From here he could see out over the country, the vast forest at the edge of town right below.

Clark stepped away. He turned around, looked up.

One of the rooms on the second floor had a veranda that overlooked the grounds.

_Evidence, clues...what am I even looking for?_

He needed to find it fast. Clark could see the sun getting low, growing deeply orange.

Clark moved back into the house, moved to the stairs up to the second floor. The hardwood groaned a little under his feet.

There was a creaking sound, and Clark froze. He listened.

No encore.

One of the random noises houses sometimes make?

Clark stopped at the foot of the stares and noticed a clock on the wall right next to it.

He noticed it because the clock was wrong. He listened, but couldn't hear any gears or any sound at all from it. It had stopped at 12:50.

_Weird._

He moved on. He got to the second floor and saw a clock on the hallway wall. He frowned at it. This one was wrong too, but it wasn't wrong in the same way. This one read 12:45 with the long hand pointed toward the nine.

_Odd, why should both clocks be wrong in different ways?_

Clark felt his breath grow short.

_Unless, the walls aren't telling the time. Maybe the arms are pointing._

From the bottom of the stairs, the other clock's long arm could have been pointing at the 10...or it could have been pointing up the stairs.

Clark followed the direction the long arm was pointing with his eyes. At the end of the corridor was a door.

It was slightly open.

Clark felt his heart start to quicken.

_Come one, don't be silly. There's no way…_

But then, Sunnydale was that kind of town.

Clark gulped and shook his head, moving down the hallway past several tribal masks from Africa and Australia that stared down at him.

Clark moved just a little faster.

He got to the door and pushed it gently open.

It was a bedroom.

"H-hello…"

No response.

Clark felt himself color with embarrassment. He stepped into the room. A computer sat on a large glass desk in the far corner to his left next to a closet.

The far wall was more a giant window, the sliding blinds pulled closed so that the room was in almost total darkness save for little slots of light that filtered in through the cracks.

Clark turned.

To his right in the far corner was a king sized bed.

Right above it was another clock, small hand on the 12, long hand pointed down, to the six, straight to the bed.

Clark looked back down the corridor. Was it him, or had the masks tilted ever so slightly, so that they could watch him?

Clark clapped his face.

_I've got to hustle, this place is damaging my calm._

Clark went over to the bed.

He felt a cold breath on the back of his neck.

He jumped and spun, hands out to protect himself.

There was nothing there.

His heart pounded as his eyes darted around. Eventually he looked up.

He'd passed under an air vent.

Clark shook his head and continued to the bed. There wasn't anything in it.

He looked back up at the clock.

It still pointed down.

Clark lowered himself to the floor and checked under the bed.

There was a large book on the floor. Clark reached in and pulled it out.

He wiped some incidental dust off it and read the cover.

_Sunnydale High School Yearbook, Class of 1999._

Clark started flipping through it.

_There's Chris Palumbo._

He continued flipping, froze on a particular page.

_Buffy Summers._

Dawn's sister.

The doppelganger.

Palumbo was in her graduating class.

A dim flash of light in the corner of his eye caused him to whip his head up.

It was the desktop, its 'sleep' indicator was blinking.

Clark's fingers grew numb.

_Was...was that always on?_

How had he not noticed it before?

_I'm just getting really distracted. It must have been on,_ he told himself.

Clark walked over and gently moved the mouse. The screen flicked to life. He was either already logged on, or the computer didn't need a password.

_Maybe one of the CSI people was looking it over and left it on…_

Clark quickly scanned through his emails.

Nothing too interesting, until one.

An email from a 'S_Grant ' which read,

"I suppose you think this one is the end of me? You think I won't recover from this? I've been putting up with your campaign of terror since the seventh grade. I'll survive.

"You though, you think your daddy's money makes you untouchable, but no one can escape karma. Your rotten behavior is gonna come back around for you. You can bet on that."

Clark glanced at the username.

S Grant.

A memory clawed to the surface. Clark flipped back through the yearbook until he found it.

The name Simon Grant below the portrait of a thin, dusty haired kid, a few years older than Clark at the time of the photo. Clark flipped through again, looking for another page.

There, the section of the yearbook dedicated to clubs. Simon Grant of the art club, posed next to a sculpture he'd made. Clark's eyes grew wide.

The detail was incredible, almost like a living thing.

So, Simon was a sculptor. Chances were he'd been in the contest. He'd been to school with both Buffy Summers and Chris Palumbo, apparently being the victim of the latter's bullying for years. Finally, he was a student at UCSD. Could he have a class with the late Professor Wescott?

How many coincidences was too many in a town this size? Either way, Mr. Grant was looking like a good next step.

Clark suddenly sat up when he heard something from the street. The sound of brakes, a car coming to a stop.

Clark set the book down and rolled the chair over to the window and gently pulled the blinds back a fraction.

A squad car had pulled up in front of the house. A uniformed officer got out, slamming the door shut and steadily surveying the area.

As soon as the man turned toward the house, Clark recognized him.

He was the officer who'd stopped Dawn and him when they'd first come by to check out the house.

Officer Cohen.

Clark watched Officer Cohen start towards the house.

_Oh crap._

Cohen paused at the gate. His body suddenly grew tense. Clark saw him close his eyes and take several long, deep breaths.

He freed his gun from its holster.

_What?_

Clark had no more time for confusion. Cohen crouched low and started swiftly moving towards the house.

Clark let the blind fall back into place and quickly got out of the chair. He left the room. He couldn't go back downstairs, all the idiotic giant windows meant Cohen would see him immediately.

Clark darted down the corridor to another room.

He heard the rustle of tape as Cohen ducked into the house.

"This is SDPD," he said, "come out with your hands up."

_How does he know I'm here?_

Clark didn't have time to puzzle it out. If he remembered correctly, this room should lead to a veranda overlooking the back.

Clark gently pushed the door open, wincing at every squeak. He stepped into the room and froze.

In the corner was another stature, done in the same style as the ones outside. This one had a blue ribbon signifying that it was the statue Palumbo had won the contest with (bribery aside).

It was pretty impressive, but that wasn't what arrested Clark.

Its face…

A few details were stretched and shifted slightly, but there was no mistaking the core of it.

It was a statue on Simon Grant.

_Why did Palumbo make a sculpture of this guy he had been terrorizing half his life?_

Clark heard a creak on the stairs. Cohen was on the move.

_No time to speculate._

Clark moved across the room, opened the sliding glass door as silently as he could, stepped out onto the veranda, and closed it behind him.

He heard Cohen's swift steps.

_If he makes it to the window, he'll see me._

Clark lept off the veranda, he hit the grass with a soft thud.

Clark darted across the grounds, weaving through the statues as he heard the turn of the doorknob.

The door opened.

Clark stepped off the edge of the cliff into the open air.

He fell in silence.


	22. Chapter 22

"Simon Grant, huh?" Dawn put a few final touches on their fake project. "This guy wasn't on our radar at all."

"No," Clark agreed, "but now that he is-"

"-he definitely fits really well."

Clark nodded and shifted on the couch in Dawn's living room.

In the other room the Scoobies were still mostly preoccupied with their own research, but he could hear Willow and Tara breaking off and starting preparations for dinner.

Clark's eyes darted to the clock on the far wall. A cold finger ran down his spine. He'd probably never be able to look at a clock the same way again.

" _Hell if I know,"_ Dawn had said when he'd asked her what she thought the clocks were about. _"Maybe the place is haunted now and Palumbo's ghost was giving you clues. That'd be very Sunnydale."_

Ghosts, huh? Clark shelved the existential crisis that the existence of ghosts should probably be causing and resolved to take it out on a rainy day.

What mattered now was what this clock, this working clock, said. Five o' four. How long till sunset? Three hours? Less?

"So," Clark said, "is this the part where you suggest we sneak out in the dead of night to investigate?"

Dawn smirked for a split second, then she shook her head. "Nah. We don't have time. I'm tired of chasing this thing's lead, just sitting around waiting for it to show up and wreck things. It's about time we attack for a change."

"How are we supposed to do that, one. And two, is that even a good idea?" Clark stopped and thought. "Actually, reverse the order of those two in your mind please."

Dawn swatted his words down with one hand. "It'll be fine, Clark. You managed to take that thing last time-"

"-you and I remember that night very differently. Are you sure you don't have a concussion?"

"Positive, I looked it up online...don't give me that look, I'm fine." Dawn felt her fires of rebellion automatically stoke themselves under Clark's withering glare. But they were hard to feed when she understood the deep concern his agitation stemmed from.

"Clark, we _need_ to get ahead of this thing. If we don't, it's just gonna hurt more people, and we might not get there in time to stop it."

Clark looked away, and his eyes softened. "Yeah, I guess you're right. So, what's our move? If we're gonna do this, we need to go fast as possible. We still don't know what the Doppelganger's deal is, but it only seems to come out at night, which means we have about a three hour safety net of sorts. But sneaking off while everyone's awake is gonna be much harder."

Dawn laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her hands, hunching over so her legs would prop up her elbows. She saw Xander walk down the hallway and causally turn to look at them for a split second before continuing on his way.

Dawn felt annoyance flash through her. The kind of hot, deep aggravation that only comes when a family member is doing something you think is really, really dumb.

_Dammit, Xander,_ she thought, _why couldn't you pull this overprotective stunt last year when it was one of my fantasies? Your timing, as usual, sucks._

"Also," Clark added, "we still don't know where Simon Grant lives."

Dawn norted. "Gimme ten minutes."

She got up off the couch and walked up the stairs, snagging the cordless on the way. One problem at a time.

She came back down seven minutes later and resumed her seat next to Clark.

"I got it. He's in the White Sands Housing Complex, apartment eleven. It's another off campus housing site for students."

Clark gave her a long, even look. "Is impersonating an employee of the United States Postal Service a felony? I feel like it might be a felony."

Dawn grinned, preening a little. It was nice to be admired for a skill you'd spent the better part of your life cultivating. And despite his continuous admonishment, Dawn could tell Clark was impressed.

His ability to hear everything that happened in her house was overaweing her less and less.

_Oh god, I'd better get him out of here before Xander and Anya start having sex. I only overheard that once and I'm pretty sure I'm scarred for life._

She would probably never be able to use the washing machine in the basement again.

Clark just shook his head at her huge smile. He didn't even bother hiding the amused smirk that tugged the corner of his lips.

The reddening sunlight deepened and, filtering through the gauzy curtains, bathed Clark's smiling profile in a soft glow.

Dawn's next breath came in a little hard. A feeling like gentle whispers on her skin spread from her core out to her limbs.

_Oh crap._

She knew what that was. Her smile collapsed. "Bathroom!"

She caught the tail end of Clark's confused face as she bolted upright and sprinted to the bathroom. She slammed the door shut behind her.

_Crap, crap, crap, crap._

She bent over the sink, turned the faucet. With a thwish, cold water shot out and into the waiting cup of her hands. She bent down and splashed herself with the cold water.

Once, twice, thrice.

Her head came up and she looked herself in the mirror, face dripping.

Clark's face in that moment popped back to the front of consciousness.

_Nope!_

Dawn searched her mind for an appropriate antidote. She called up images of Steve Buscemi, Henry Kissinger, and Danny DeVito.

She kept cycling through them again and again.

_Buscemi, Kissinger, DeVito. Buscemi, Kissinger, DeVito._

She did this until she felt she had left the danger zone. Her heart had settled and she could breathe normally. She looked more closely at her face. Complexion normal.

_Whew. That was a close one._

She sighed in relief, toweled off her face and walked back out.

Clark watched her walk back. His face still held that confused expression.

"What was that about?" he asked.

" _Nothing,"_ she almost said before remembering, _oh right, Clark's basically a god damn mind reader._

"Lady troubles," Dawn said.

Clark just shrugged and seemed to accept it.

"Well," he said, "I don't suppose you had any brilliant epiphanies while you were in the bathroom?"

Dawn shook her head. "You?"

"I won't be a problem. I could probably head over right now. My parents are pretty used to me taking long, late walks. I get restless. So long as I call them first they won't worry."

"Lucky. The Scoobies are generally pretty chill, but ever since Buffy died, they've been kinda strict with the curfew."

Not that being around her was the same thing as being with her. Dawn shook that thought off. Then she frowned. Something odd had happened. She'd just mentioned Buffy's death without even thinking about it, but the stab to the heart she usually got hadn't made an appearance.

What was that about?

_Psychoanalyze later, plan now._

"So they never leave you alone?" Clark asked.

"Never for too long. Basically the only time is-" Dawn's eyes grew wide.

_Well, hello Mr. Epiphany. So nice of you to visit me this fine evening._

"Ah," Clark said, "I can see you have your 'idea face' on. I'm sure you can take it from here then, I'll go on ahead now just in case your plan involves arson or something. You can meet me there."

Dawn blew a raspberry at him.

They squared away the project and Clark said goodbye to the Scoobies.

"Hold up," Xander said, "I'll drive you."

Dawn froze.

_Oops, I forgot to give Clark a cover story too!_

Her mind raced and her mouth opened, but then Clark spoke up.

"Oh, there's no need, I actually have to do a bunch of errands right now anyway."

That seemed to mollify Xander.

"Just don't stay out too late," he warned. "Be sure you're home before sundown."

_Nice one,_ Dawn thought at Clark. _Stick with me and pretty soon your deception skills will be at the "double life" level._

The Scoobies saw Clark off, and as he closed the door behind him, he gave Dawn a quick wink.

He trusted her, she realised. There was no doubt in his mind that she could pull this off.

She let the sudden wave of warmth wash over her, floated in it for a bit. Then she hopped back to shore. It was Oscar time.

_The dinner is the thing in which I'll catch the conscience of the...Scoobies...no, nevermind that doesn't work._

Dawn shook her head and went to go wash up.

* * *

"Yeah, I'm fine," Clark said over the payphone in a public park not far from Dawn's house. "I'm just feeling a little...I don't know, stir crazy? You know how it goes."

He could hear his father's upset breathing on the other end of the line.

Clark's heart wouldn't stay still, and he couldn't shake the impossible feeling that his father would develop lie detecting powers right then and there. He'd probably lied to his parents more in the last few days than he had his whole life.

_Jeez they know, right? They've caught me. The jig is up, my hand is both red and in the cookie jar, pants aflame. This is the part where they ground me till the sun expands into a red gi-_

"I don't know, Clark" his father said, "this is a new town and...I've been hearing these weird stories about gangs that run around after dark."

_Ha,_ Clark thought, not finding it at all funny.

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll be careful. But if we're gonna be living here, I'll need to look around eventually."

Clark held his breath through the silence.

"How are you doing," his father asked, "any more...you know…"

Clark held his hand, the one not holding the phone, up to eye level.

"Not even a twitch," Clark said.

"Good, that's good. Maybe your control is getting better."

_Or maybe my body's spare energy has been spent fighting vampires, breaking into people's houses, evading the police, and wrecking a nice bit of my new hometown chasing down a doppelganger of my new friend's dead sister...wow, it's been a weird few days._

"Yeah, maybe," Clark said. His mind wandered back to his second confrontation with Dawn. The strange thing, with his eyes, the furious dots of light that had threatened to blot out his vision. He'd almost forgotten all about that.

He still hadn't told his father. For a moment, the words almost escaped him right then.

_No, not now. There will be time to break his heart with that later. "Better"? Sorry, dad, I'm getting even stranger._

"Well…" his father said. "I guess it should be fine. Just be careful."

"Always am."

They said their goodbyes and Clark hung up the phone.

He huffed. Well, for better or worse, it was done. He had things to do. He'd gotten directions from Dawn, so now he had to make his way to Simon Grant's place and wait for her there. He walked out of the park, eyes glancing at the plaque by the entrance as he left.

_Is everything in this town named after this 'Mayor Wilkins'? I'll have to ask Dawn about that later._

He didn't realize he was being followed until he'd walked another block.

Clark stopped and turned to stare down the police car as it crawled toward him.

_Move past me,_ he thought, feverishly denying his instincts. _Move past me, move past me, move past me…_

He kept hoping even when he saw who was driving. The car stopped in front of him. The window rolled down.

"Mr. Clark Kent?" Officer Cohen asked, staring at him from behind his mirrored sunglasses.

Clark's eyes darted from one side to the other.

"Are you Mr. Clark Kent?" Cohen's voice was amused, the cat watching the mouse scamper and scuttle, one paw firmly on dinner's thin pink tail.

"That's me," Clark said, voice even, breath held.

There was an impossibly loud click as the locks on the car door popped with the push of a button.

"Why don't we take a ride?" Officer Cohen said.

Clark thought he heard something strange in Cohen's voice. It seemed lower, rougher. Or was that just his imagination?

There was no one else on the road.

"Are you arresting me, Officer?"

Clark heard straining upholstery as Cohen's grip on the shoulder of the passenger seat abruptly tightened for a second. He let go.

"I'm Officer Cohen, and have you done anything illegal that I should be arresting you for, Mr. Kent?"

Clark kept his eyes steadily on his own reflection in the dark glasses. "No."

That was a thing, right? You seem more honest if you don't break eye contact?

"Then I guess I'm not arresting you."

"Well, I guess that means-"

"But I _do_ need to ask you a few questions."

Clark frowned. His weight shifted from one foot to the other. He could feel the instinct to split. He looked around again, possible escape routes revealing themselves.

"So you can come with me," Cohen continued, "or I can go to your parents."

Clark froze. He turned back to Cohen. He was smiling a vicious smile, many teeth showing.

"I know you're new here, Mr. Kent. I'm new here too, moved in just a few months ago. I know how it is, moving to a new place. Stressful. I know that we both don't want your parents worrying more about pointless things."

Clark's hand clenched into a fist.

"After all," Cohen said, "all I'm going to do is ask you a few questions. As you just said, you haven't done anything wrong, so it's not like you're in any trouble. In fact, you might even be able to help me with something."

Clark was cold with anger. Bringing his parents into this was a mistake on Cohen's part.

Alright," Clark said.

He got in the car.

Neither Clark nor Cohen said anything as they drove. To Clark's surprise, Cohen did in fact take him to the Sunnydale Police Department. The place was basically empty, and the few officers Clark saw weren't encouraging.

They seemed half asleep, one or two glanced his way then went back to what they were doing. One guy was playing Solitaire.

No wonder the Scoobies handled everything themselves.

Cohen practically wheeled Clark into a room with bare white walls, a desk and two chairs opposite each other in the center.

Cohen bid Clark to sit down in one, across from a camcorder on a tripod that was further back toward the wall. It was off.

Clark sat down, looked at Cohen.

"Not enough money for those one way mirrors in your interrogation room?"

Cohen said nothing. He closed the door and stepped into the room. He walked with slow purpose toward the other chair. He pulled it out, deliberately making noise as the tin legs of the chair ground against the floor.

Cohen sat down. He placed his hands on the desk. He stared at Clark.

Clark stared back. "Weren't you gonna ask me some questions?"

Cohen took another strange, long breath. Something was odd about that too, but Clark couldn't put his fingers on it.

Clark heard Cohen's teeth grinding together.

Clark's superhuman eyes saw the fine hairs on Cohen's arms stand on end.

That feeling of familiarity continued to bother him. Something about this reaction was echoing in Clark's memory.

"So," Cohen said, "what were you doing at Chris Palumbo's house this afternoon?"

* * *

Plates and utensils clattered together as Dawn and the Scoobies ate their dinner. Dawn kept her eyes on her plate, waiting for the right moment.

The dining room and most of the ground floor smelled like beef stew.

Dawn pushed a chunk of potato around in the broth, bumping it into a few carrots.

Waiting for the right moment? That was a lie, mostly. It was more down to lacking courage. She had a plan, now was the time to implement it. She was on the clock.

The sun wouldn't stop going down and wait for her to stop hesitating. But every time she tried to start, a wave of exhaustion would roll over her.

She was more than a little sick of fighting.

_He's counting on you,_ Dawn reminded herself. That was new. Someone relying on her. So far it was one part lovely, two parts terrifying.

She took a deep breath. "So, how's the investigation coming?"

Everyone looked at her, though they could only hold it for a second before it became too awkward and they had to look away.

Giles coughed and set his spoon down. A napkin came up to wipe his mouth. He leaned forward, steepled his fingers.

"Well," he said, "we are fairly certain we've found the culprit."

Dawn's throat grew tight.

"There is a creature," Giles continued, "called a Corpse Snatcher, so named not because it takes corpses, as one might think, but because it can disguise itself as a dead person after spending a night sleeping on top of their grave."

Dawn carefully hid her breath of relief.

"It is considered a type of Ghoul, though there is an interesting debate regarding that point since the Corpse Snatcher uses it's disguise to lure away and eat the loved ones of the deceased it's mimicking, unlike most Ghouls, who only eat the dead-"

"-Anyway," Xander said, "the important part is that I was just at Willie's. He told us there's definitely a Corpse Snatcher in town-"

Anya started laughing. "They're a real hoot at parties. I remember this one time, in Nazi Germany, when…"

Anya became aware of the glaring eyes around the table. She huffed. "Fine, don't let me tell my story, though I'm sure it contains lots of important information and now all of you are definitely going to die. Serves you right."

She gave an imperious sniff and went back to her stew.

Willow broke off from glaring at Anya and turned to Giles. "I'm still not sure about it. A Corpse Snatcher definitely has the abilities, but the methodology seems wrong to me. I mean, wouldn't it be coming after us since we were closer to Buffy than anyone. Much closer than the two victims, who by the way, weren't eaten."

"Um, well, what I described is the general pattern for Corpse Snatchers, but by no means is it their only modus operandi. Not to mention this being might be exhibiting aberrant behavior purposefully as part of some other agenda."

"Yeah," Anya said again, "they can be really tricky. See, in my story, the Allies had this super secret plan to assassinate Hitler, but what they didn't know-"

"-Anya," Willow said, "no one cares."

Anya had a hot retort loaded, but Tara hurriedly headed her off.

"There's also the thing that happened last night," she said. "I mean, Corpse Snatchers are strong but, not strong enough to smash through all those buildings."

"Ah yes," Xander said, "how did the news report it? Micro burst tornadoes? What does that even mean? Gotta love the Sunnydale cover-up machine."

"That might not be related to this at all," Giles said. "But either way, we know for a fact that there is a Corpse Snatcher in town. We can't ignore it-"

"-They do love a body count," Anya said. "See, the Allies had this secret anti-occult team-"

"-Exactly," Giles said, "so we'll deal with the known factor, and resolve the leftover mysteries after."

Willow sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. It's not like I have a better lead yet anyway."

Anya was back to glaring at all of them.

Dawn appeared to have silently faded out of the conversation. She judged this pause the time for phase two.

"So...can I come with you guys?"

They all froze, except Anya, who just kept eating.

"Dawn," Willow started.

Right on cue.

Dawn tossed her spoon down. It hit the table with a loud clatter.

"I knew it," she said, shrill, nearly a shriek. "You guys are still gonna keep boxing me out!"

She threw a masterful fit. She had been worried that after the initial burst, she wouldn't be able to maintain the performance long enough.

It wasn't a problem. The anger and the violence surprised even her. It was easy when she wasn't really lying.

She wanted them to stop. Stop treating her like a child, stop coddling her when it really wasn't keeping her safe, stop ignoring her damn feelings. She wanted to help. Help them, help others, how could she not?

Frankly it was irresponsible of them, running around being all heroic, how could she want to do anything else. They were her heroes.

Then something strange happened. Though she was pretending, or perhaps because of it, Dawn heard herself, really and truly, for the first time.

How many of these fits had she thrown over the years?

Stop treating her like a child? How could they do that when she kept acting like one?

The shock of that realization almost froze her. Her resolve shuddered and wavered like a support beam that had been struck hard. It was time to quit the field before she lost her grip.

She pulled out the classic of teens the world over. "You don't understand me!"

Then she stomped off.

"Dawn!" Xander stood up so fast his chair was almost knocked over. He went after her.

Willow grabbed him by the wrist as he passed.

Dawn reached the top of the stairs, she'd stomped up as loudly as possible. She stopped there and held her breath, the better to hear them with.

"Wait," Willow said, "leave her alone. We can talk to her again when she cools off."

Mission Accomplished. Dawn bit her bitter lip as she stepped into her room.

Too easy. Her family had been so ready to just write it off as another "Dawn Moment". Another episode in a long running series.

Dawn closed the door behind her.

_Who's fault is that?_ Dawn asked herself.

It hurt. Doubly so because she couldn't think of anyone to blame but herself.

_It can be different,_ Dawn told herself as she locked her door and started blasting her angsty-est music.

_I can be different. I can show them that I can be mature, that I can handle being a Scooby, that I'm not just a brat who screams about everything. It can be different...but not tonight. Tonight I need them to believe it._

They would leave her alone for the rest of the night, Dawn knew. No one but her mother had ever braved the storm of her tantrums while they were raging.

Dawn looked herself in the mirror. She took several deep breaths.

_Alright kid, time to woman up. You don't have time for sulking, not tonight. Your friend's counting on you._

She ducked down and reached under her bed. She pulled her backpack out, adventure ready, prepared before for just this moment.

She popped the window open, and with the ease of practice, made her escape into the evening sun.

She made her way to the White Sands Complex. It was a couple of long, one story apartment buildings. She found Grant's apartment, but no mater where she looked, she couldn't find Clark.

He should have been there way before her.

_Maybe he left to get a snack?_

She shuddered as a bad feeling passed through her.

* * *

Clark blinked, but under the flimsy table, his hands gripped his knees.

"What are you talking about?"

Cohen continued to stare at him. He reached up and pulled the glasses off.

Clark thought his pupils seemed abnormally large.

Cohen leaned forward, his arms crossed but resting on the table. Clark heard a loud clacking. Cohen's nails on the metal.

Clark glanced at Cohen's fingers.

_Large nails,_ he noted. That too seemed odd, for a police officer. Clark felt a strange sensation. A crawling on his skin. Everything seemed too close. This tiny space cornered him.

He was trapped in this room. Trapped with Cohen. Clark stared. He saw himself. His reflection in the black mirrors. Cohen's eyes.

"What are you?" Cohen asked.

Clark grit his teeth. He heard hammering. His heart. Another, Cohen's too. Something like old instinct called to him.

_Things move in the bushes. Things move in the dark. Find the light, find the fire, find safety. The predator is hunting._

Cold fear ran through him. His vision swam with red fireflies.

Clark shut his eyes, gripping his knees till they hurt.

_Not here,_ he pleaded with the Alien. _Not now, not when he's watching._

Clark slowed his breathing. The red began to fade. He looked at Cohen again.

"Are you allowed to keep me here?" Clark asked, refusing to look away. Truthfully, he wasn't sure. It didn't seem likely, Clark was still a minor after all.

But then, Cohen had him trapped. He knew it. Clark was up to no good for sure.

He couldn't call his parents. He'd need to explain. He'd promised Dawn he would keep this a secret. This was about her sister, after all.

Something changed. Imperceptible to human eyes. Even here, in this room, twice sealed from the world outside, Clark knew. The subtle red. The tinge of sunset. He was running out of time. Dawn needed him.

"Clark, I know you were there today." Cohen's voice was careful, even, cold.

But it didn't fool Clark. He heard the violence inside.

_And how do you know?_ Clark wondered.

Cohen took another breath. Those strange breaths. The long, savoring breaths.

_No,_ Clark realized, _not breaths. He's sniffing the air. He smells me._

The flash of insight. The lighting in the clear sky. The moment it all came together. The puzzle pieces had been assembled and Clark knew from the shapes where the missing pieces fit.

_Sunnydale, what a town._

"I wasn't there," Clark said, "so arrest me, or let me go."

"Clark," Cohen grit his teeth now. Clark could see them.

"Why, Officer Cohen," Clark said, keeping himself very still with every ounce of will he had, "what big teeth you have."

Cohen recoiled. He seemed to notice himself for the first time. His fingernails were digging into the table. He stood up. Clark heard him swallow.

"Stay." Cohen almost bolted from the room.

_Not likely,_ Clark thought. As soon as he heard Cohen step into another room and the flow of running water, _bathroom then,_ Clark got up.

Clark sighed. So far, his new town was proving less than accommodating. Now because of Sunnydale strangeness, a _police officer_ was onto his secret. Suspicious, at least. In the Clark Kent Book of Personal Disasters, this ranked up there. Right below, "dissection in government laboratory" and above "alien mind takes over and I run around naked".

But Clark was strangely devoid of panic. Just last week, Dawn, a high school girl had suspected only the beginning of strangeness about him, and he'd flipped his lid.

Now an employee of the government, and possible werewolf, was after him, and Clark felt calm as a river stone.

Because he knew it didn't matter now. There'd be time to worry about Cohen. He needed to get to Dawn.

Clark walked out of the interrogation room. No one even glanced his way. Clark shook his head. He started to the door.

"Hey." Cohen was back.

_Escape!_

That was Clark's oldest instinct. He had no doubt he could get away. But Cohen, whatever the story behind him, was a hunter now. He'd just give chase. Clark needed another tactic.

The voice he heard in his mind was not the voice of his mother or father, his usual models of wisdom. This voice was younger, shriller, and ten times as bold as any other Clark knew.

Clark turned away from the exit and crossed the department to stand in front of an office whose blinders were all shut. Clark opened the door.

Cohen was rushing toward him now. Too late. Clark strode inside.

A man sat at a desk in the office. An older man with a pair of impressive white mustachios. When Clark walked in, the man looked up from a manila folder, glanced at Clark, raised an eyebrow.

Clark saw the plaque on the desk.

Cohen burst in behind him, "Wait-"

"-Good evening, Chief Callahan," Clark said. "Sorry, but does your department make a habit of apprehending minors without their guardians present and interrogating them without charges?"

Clark sensed Cohen become very still behind him.

Chief Callahan stared at Clark a second longer. He looked to Cohen. He looked back to Clark. He realized something.

His white face became deeply red and the skin of his face stretched tight against his skull.

"Cohen!"

Clark could see spittle.

He sensed Cohen flinch. "Chief, wait-"

"Tell me this is not Clark Goddamn Kent. Tell me right the hell now!"

"I can explain-"

The Chief's fist came down on the table so hard, Clark thought it would dent. The Chief was getting ready for another hollering. Clark raised his hand.

"Sorry, Chief, as much as I'd like to stick around for this, can I go? I promise that if you just let me go home, my family won't be hearing about this and calling any of the many talented lawyers we know."

The Chief glared at him now too. He nodded, and grumbled something that couldn't really be construed as an apology in polite society.

Clark turned and left. One uniformed officer glanced up at him. She returned to playing Solitaire.

Even leaving the building, Clark could hear the goings on of the office.

"I told you," the Chief said, "not to pursue your insane, cockamamie theories."

"But Chief, I'm telling you...there's something _wrong_ with that kid...I can't really explain it, it's just a...sense-"

"-I don't care if it's a goddamn prophecy delivered from on high by the ghost of Nostradamus. You have _no_ evidence that-"

And on and on like that. Clark was already past it. He moved fast as he dared, heading for Simon Grant's place.

_It hasn't been that long. I'm sure Dawn's fine. How much trouble can a person really get in in one hour?_

Clark suddenly felt a little queasy. He moved a little faster.

* * *

Simon Grant's door opened and the man himself stepped out. Dawn perked up from the hedges she was hiding behind. She watched him walk to his car.

He was kinda cute. A bit on the lanky side.

He got in the car and started it. Dawn watched him pull out. She looked back to the door.

_Holy crap, chance! But Clark's still not here? What should I do?_

Dawn bit her lip.

_No telling how long he'll be gone. God knows when Clark will show up. Sun's almost set. The time is now._

Dawn's eyes darted from one side to the other as she made her way across the parking lot. She couldn't decide whether to hurry or pretend to be causally strolling so she wound up somewhere between the two. Both suspiciously fast and too slow for comfort.

But no one was around.

Dawn made it to the door and almost smacked it like it was the safe zone in a game of Red Rover.

She tried the door. Locked. Of course.

Dawn looked around again. Still clear. She unzipped a pocket of her backpack.

_Thank you, Spike,_ she thought for the billionth time as she fished out her gift. She really needed to try and patch things up with him. Later.

She bent over the knob and got to work. A few seconds later, it popped open. Dawn grinned. She was getting better for sure.

She slid inside and closed the door behind her, locking it. She looked around the room, licking dry lips.

It looked very orderly. There was a small kitchen to the left, a dining table to the right, a sofa straight ahead that faced a tv.

Dawn took a long breath to settle her trembling limbs and stepped forward.

_No time to hesitate. I've got to look around fast, who knows when he'll be back?_

Dawn stepped further into the apartment, her eyes kept darting back to the door. She wished Clark were here.

_How am I gonna hear him coming if all I can hear is my own freakin' heart hammering in my ears?_

Dawn walked past the bathroom, peeked inside.

_Cleaner than mine. Oh, and what kind of dweeb actually uses those little rolling pins for tubes of toothpaste? He's obviously a psychopath._

Dawn spotted something red on the tile floor.

_Blood?_

She bent down and picked at it. It had hardened. It flecked away and Dawn held it in her hand like a tiny red jewel.

It was dried wax.

Dawn frowned. She dropped the wax and got up. Wax could be from candles. Candles were used for all sorts of mystical things.

Dawn moved into the bedroom. With the angle of this doorway, not a lot of the waning sunlight made it in. Dawn flicked the light on.

She nearly screamed. The Doppelganger was there, standing in front of her. Dawn jumped, backpedaling, she half turned to run away but hit a wall hard. She went down.

"Oof." Dawn turned, arms up to protect herself.

There was nothing there. Breathing ragged, lying on the floor, Dawn slowly worked herself up to her feet.

She stepped forward, tiptoeing really, like she were walking through the den of a sleeping lion. Ten sleeping lions, the whole of Pride Rock was in that room, and she was walking across eggshells and dry leaves.

She walked back, peeked into the room. It was still there. It made no sign that it'd noticed her. Was it always so...shiny?

Dawn blinked.

_Holy crap._

It was a wax statue.

Dawn stepped forward, slowly, increasingly slowly the closer she got to it. She reached out one hand. She touched it.

Yes. It was wax. Dawn stepped back, staring. The level of detail was unreal. It was almost like a living thing. It was her sister's image, through and through.

The cocky stance, weight on one hip, the defiantly crossed arms, the almost lethargic way one hand gripped a wooden, or rather wax, stake. The expression was a little different though.

Crueler somehow.

Dawn's breath had calmed a little.

_So,_ her mind could form thoughts again, _what is this? Other than super creepy, of course. And what does it have to do with the Doppel-_

A wave of cold rolled through her head from the back to the front. The whole room shook. Or wait, she was falling?

Then came pain, exploding on the back of her skull. She thought she heard herself cry out a thousand miles away.

She was one the floor, meeting the carpet. Then the lights died out.

**Author's Note:** This is the penultimate chapter. You know what that means...stay tuned for the finale, coming up next!


	23. Chapter 23

Clark was probably seen on his way to the apartment. He didn't care. What would they do? Tell everyone they saw a vaguely human sized blur speeding through the town?

Clark could smell burning rubber, standing in the complex parking lot. Black skid marks from where someone peeled out way too quickly still glimmered faintly with recent heat on the pavement.

_That's a bad sign._

He checked the empty parking spot where the car had been parked before racing off. He found a few drops of blood. Fear, cold and leaden, dropped into his chest.

Clark ran to the door of apartment 11, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye. He shoved the door open. It wasn't locked. He knew no one was inside. He couldn't hear any movement. He looked around anyway. In the bedroom he found signs of a struggle.

A broken lamp on the floor. Blood on the floor, some on the bed. A depression in the sheets just about the right size for Dawn. Clark saw a roll of duct tape on the ground where it had rolled half under a bedside nightstand after being tossed. Dawn's pink backpack had been thrown to the floor.

Fear and anger charged each other like batteries.

Clark heard someone crying out, low and hoarse. He realised it was himself right around the time he noticed his fist was currently embedded in the wall.

White plaster flaked down like snowfall. Clark stared at the hole he'd suddenly opened in the house. He pulled his fist back and struggled to unclench it. It seemed to resist for a moment, before slowly coming loose.

His vision was swarming with red fireflies again, buzzing in furious frenzy.

Clark closed his eyes. Kept his hands straight and open. His breathing slowed.

_Stop. You can't help her like this. What you need now is calm, control, concentration._

Clark opened his eyes again. A thousand tiny details, invisible to most humans, spoke to him.

_She came into the bedroom, stopped near the entrance. He hit her in the back of the head. She fell, hit the ground. She was probably knocked out. He drags her onto the bed. He gets the tape, ties her up probably. At some point during this she comes to, she struggles. The lamp gets knocked over. He has to drag her out._

Clark walked, followed the events through the apartment and out the door.

_He loaded her into the car, probably in the trunk._

Clark grit his teeth so hard he half thought he might break them.

_God damn it. If Cohen hadn't dragged me off for some stupid…_

Clark shook it off. It didn't matter. He had to get to Dawn and he had to get to her yesterday.

Good news was she was still alive when Grant threw her into the car. If he planned to kill her- Clark's heart shuddered at the thought- he didn't seem keen on doing it in his own home.

_So, I need to kill someone and dispose of their body. Where do I take them? It has to be out of town, because they're still alive and someone will hear them struggling._

Clark ran to the road. The car had made a hard right here, leaving faint marks on the road that practically shone to Clark.

_If he's heading that way, the fastest route out of town is…_

The pavement under Clark's foot splintered with his force as he pushed off it and shot down the road, fast as he could.

* * *

Dawn kicked out at the trunk again. A thump, but nothing more.

_God, they make this look so easy in movies._

Well, at least there were no doubts about the culprit anymore. Attacking her, gagging her, tying her up and dragging her into the trunk of his car were all pretty clear indicators.

At least she'd have the knowledge that she'd solved the case to comfort her in the afterlife, so that was something.

She kicked out again, hit the metal at an odd angle, felt pain ripple from her feet through her body.

She let herself relax, slumping down onto the bed of the trunk. She'd scream more, but her throat was hoarse with it. She knew no one would hear her, gagged and in a trunk. No human, anyway, but Clark might.

She'd asked him once how far away he could hear things.

" _It's a complicated question,"_ Clark said. _"Remember that sound is a wave, it has to physically travel through the air to get to me. Any number of things happen between where the sound comes from, and when it gets to me, that change its volume._

" _You have the starting volume, the mediums and acoustics of the spaces it has to travel through, how far it has to travel, and what other ambient noises interfere with it. If I had to ballpark it, I can hear a whisper from a block away, an ordinary conversation from about five blocks away, and a scream from about ten blocks."_

Dawn really hoped Clark was somewhere within ten blocks.

_If there's a lesson to be learned here,_ Dawn thought, _it's probably that after this, I should learn some kind of martial art or something if I really plan on fighting monsters. At least carry some pepper spray. Maybe wear a helmet everywhere I go from now on._

_Actually, probably not. I can't even imagine what Chirstie would start saying._

Dawn's head rolled back. She wa dizzy. She could still feel blood trickling out of the back of her head. At least she thought she could.

_What are the signs of concussion again?_

She giggled to herself. Poor Clark was going to have a fit. Two head injuries in as many days.

_I need light._

Dawn slowly worked to turn herself over with her hands taped behind her back. She was sweating, her breath was hard. The air in the trunk was muggy, smelled of clay, suffocating. There were things in here with her. She heard them moving around when Grant took a turn. Maybe something she could use to help her escape.

But she couldn't see them.

Dawn took a deep breath. She couldn't just rely on Clark for this.

_Well, I wanted to prove I could do things on my own. Sink or swim time. Worst case scenario? I die bloody._

She laughed at the darkness as loud as she could. She had given Sunnydale and the evils that inhabit it enough of her terror and her misery. She wouldn't give them any more. She'd keep her fear coiled down inside her until she found a time to make it useful.

She turned over again so that she was facing the front of the trunk. She couldn't see what was in there. That meant she would need to feel for it. If there was something she could use to cut herself loose, something sharp, she could very well stab herself trying to find it.

She inched herself along the bed of the trunk. She stretched her arms out behind her and with them combed the floor. Nothing. She moved further in, combed again. She found something.

She touched a thin, metallic wire. She felt it with her fingers, pulling it through them. When she got to the little wooden knobs at the end she knew what it was.

_Cutting wire for clay and stuff. Explains the smell._

She'd found wax in the house, but it seemed Simon Grant did work with clay as well.

_Really, what a talented guy. Wax work, clay work, summoning of unspeakable horrors from beyond reality, murder, kidnapping...he probably jaywalks too._

Dawn thought back to Mr. Manson's art class. The start of the whole adventure. They hadn't gotten to it, but they'd be working with clay later in the class. She remembered some of the tools. She remembered the thin scalpel blades used to carve the clay.

Her heart started to pound.

She swept the bed again, faster now. Nothing. She pushed herself farther in. As her arms swept out, shit hit the back of the trunk. Her heart was in her throat. Last stretch.

She moved her hands slowly over the soft fuzz of the trunk bed.

_Come on, come on, come on._

A finger brushed something. She pulled it closer, fingers prodding. It was some kind of pouch. She found strings and untied them. The pouch rolled open. Dawn grasped it, began searching with her fingers. She felt fine wooden handles. She poked herself on something that felt like a tiny pick. Warm blood welled up from the finger.

She searched very tool. Finally, the last one, she felt it. A short, thin blade. So sharp it sliced a finger open when she just brushed against it. Stifling a squeal of glee, she pushed the blade out of the pouch and grasped it in her hands. She maneuvered it with her fingers so she could touch the blade to the tape at her wrists.

She stopped. The car was no longer moving. The trunk popped open.

Dawn pushed herself back. She wormed deeper into the trunk. She blinked at the light. It was the dim dusk light, darkest of evening twilight. But compared to the blackness in the trunk, it was blinding.

Two hands reached out and grabbed her. She kicked and thrashed the best she could, tied as she was. She used the commotion to hide the blade, gripping it in both hands.

Simon Grant dragged her out. He was bigger than her, but he was no one's idea of a strongman.

Dawn's feet touched the ground and she started to tip. Grant pushed her so she leaned against the trunk.

His face was red and sweating. His breath was hard too.

Dawn glared at him, and taking advantage of the tape over her mouth, mumbled a series of muffled comments that would have made Spike stand up and applaud.

At the same time, she slowly maneuvered the blade. She set it to the tape binding her hands. She hoped her mumbling covered any sound the tape might be making as she tried to cut it loose.

If only she could keep her hands from shaking.

Simon Grant was looking around now. They had taken one of the roads that wound through the forest.

Grant looked down the road, then back to the trees.

"Tm th fhhr ht hw t kh mm?" Dawn said.

"What?"

Dawn repeated her question.

Grant grant bit his lip, then stepped closer. "I can't understand you because of the tape."

Dawn tried not to roll her eyes. She did it anyway.

Grant reached for the tape at her mouth. He was so close now, Dawn couldn't help it.

She headbutted him. She then learned that headbutting was a dumb idea.

Grant cried out, probably more in surprise than actual pain, and fell over.

"Hww," Dawn moaned. She instinctively tried to reach up to rub the point of impact. The binding stopped her short. Dawn tsked as best she could with tape on her mouth then went back to cutting.

Simon grant got up, groaning, holding his hands to his nose. Dawn saw red trickle out from between his fingers.

_Touch, point Dawn._

Simon Grant glared at her. Dawn told herself for the third time in as many seconds that headbutts were stupid, especially if you weren't in a position to use them to escape immediately.

Grant walked back around to the front of the car. Dawn cut faster. She couldn't see if she was making any progress or not. She leaned back further to better hide her work with her body.

She turned her head to watch Grant open the driver door and lean inside the car. He came back out with something in his hand. It was long, thin, and metallic black.

A tire iron.

Dawn flinched away. Her stomach turned over on itself.

But if she had one skill, it was turning fear into defiant anger. She looked back and glared at him, hoping he wouldn't notice her shaky breath.

He raised the tire iron and pointed it at her. Dawn saw the end of it had a red stain.

The throb at the back of her head grew stronger. There was another mystery solved.

"I'm going to take off the tape on your mouth. Do _not_ try anything again. Clear?"

Dawn nodded.

Grant reached over. He hesitated with his fingers at the corner of her mouth, then he jerked the tape off.

"Ow," Dawn said. Then she went back to glaring.

Grant backed up, pointed the tire iron at her again, then moved away. He walked to the rear passenger door and opened it.

Dawn continued sawing at her restraints. She could feel them coming loose. Nearly there.

Grant had ducked into the car again. He started to coax something out. Something large, covered by a white sheet. The small suggestion of human shape beneath that sheet made Dawn turn white.

She discarded stealth for speed, slicing at the tape.

Grant eased the shape in the sheet to a standing position. He pulled the sheet back.

It was the wax effigy of Buffy.

Dawn's hands stopped their vital work. She stared at it. It stared into the distance, ferocious and proud.

How could a lump of carved wax have so much of her sister's soul in its eyes?

"What is this?" Dawn realized she had whispered it. She said again, loud enough to be heard. "What is that thing? What did you do?"

From this angle, Dawn couldn't see his face. But the way he stood before it frightened her. His hands stretching out to either side, palms toward the statue, like a priest at prayer.

"I didn't know this would happen," he said.

"What happened? Mr. Grant, please."

Grant turned to look at her. His eyes were shining.

"Do you know who I am?" Dawn asked.

Grant nodded.

"Then please, this is about my sister. What happened?"

Grant nodded again. He took a deep breath. "I didn't know this would happen. When I made her I was just… I was so…"

Dawn started to work the tape again. "Start from the beginning," she said.

Grant's hands dropped to his sides. "I don't know what it was about me that made Chris hate me. I wasn't the only gay kid in our school. Sure, he messed with all of us, but there was something about me that set him off.

"Years. For years he's been torturing me. I put up with it because hey, high school is hell right? But even after that. His damn torture followed me even into college, even into my most sacred place. My art."

At last, the tape came free. Grant still hadn't turned around. Dawn inched up on top of the trunk so she could sit. She brought her feet up and began on the tape there. "I pretty much worked it out. About how Palumbo bribed the judges for that contest or whatever."

"He didn't even need the money! He was rich. I needed it. I needed it and he knew that I needed it and still he-" Grant took a breath. "I was so angry. I started to make…"

Grant covered his face with his free hand. "I remember Buffy," he said. "I mean, a specific...you hear things, in this town. You hear stories, maybe even see something. We ignored it, most of it, all of it. At least until graduation. But even before that. I met a guy at the Bronze, and he...he was so charming, and mature, and his insights...sure I followed him out.

"I followed him out expecting…" Grant made a helpless shrug, swung the tire iron down at some imaginary foe. "But his face, and the fangs. I would have died that day. But Buffy was there. We knew some things, even before graduation day we knew some things. One of those things was that Buffy Summers, she was something spooky. She went hand in hand with the things in the night. But she was our protector. We understood that much, she was our justice."

"Maybe that was why I made it in her image. Maybe I wanted protection. Maybe I wanted justice. Maybe I wanted Buffy Summers to come and do what she always used to do. Kill the evil things."

Dawn felt cold. He hands stopped, blade halfway through the tape. She remembered that night outside Emma Ying's, crouched behind a car, talking to Clark. She remembered what she'd said to him, about the Hellmouth.

" _Sometimes it'll make things happen on its own, and the way something feels sort of...becomes reality."_

"I've never felt anything like that," Grant said. "I mean, I've been inspired before but...this was something else. It was like I wasn't even in control, like the statue in the wax was telling me what to do, how to reveal it."

A statue so lifelike, it had come to life. Created in and powered by anger and a want of vengeance, it had become what it was. Leave it to the Hellmouth to make the worst possible interpretation of someone's feelings.

"Mr. Grant," Dawn said, sawing again, "you have to destroy it. This thing is killing people."

"I know. I know! But I can't, I can't! It's too...it's so powerful. I've thought about it, I've tried. It would hurt me. It would punish me for sure."

Dawn sprang off the car, free at last. She stormed over to Grant. He turned and flinched away from her, this girl a head shorter and probably thirty pounds lighter.

"Mr. Grant, you have to destroy it now."

"It was an accident. I didn't know it would come to _life_. Are you kidding me? How could I _possibly_ know that was going to happen? I don't want to go to jail for this, it's not like I told it to go kill people, it's not my fault!"

Dawn scowled. "Hey! You wanna know why Palumbo tortured you for so long? I'm betting it's because you're so spineless that you just rolled over no matter what he did to you. But because you're such a pushover, Grant, people are dead! If you can't do it, fine. I'll do it myself."

Grant flinched again as Dawn snatched the tire iron out of his hand. She strode over to the statue. Standing in front of it, she hesitated.

She looked it in those vivid eyes as the final haze of light faded away.

_Sorry,_ she thought, _but the truth is you were never my sister, you weren't close, not even as an effigy. My sister isn't about punishment, or vengeance. She's a guardian, she fights to protect the innocent. And me._

Dawn lifted the tire iron and brought it down.

A thin, supple hand caught the tire iron. Without effort the cold hard metal bent and crumpled in its grip as the Doppelganger stared Dawn down, the stake twirling in the fingers of its other hand.

It was finally well and truly night time.

Dawn released the iron and tried to back away. She heard Grant running off, boots smacking on the pavement. The Doppelganger's had closed around Dawn's throat and she was lifted into the air.

Dawn kicked out, flailed, thrashed, but the Doppelganger didn't budge. Dawn's blows did nothing, didn't even seem to irritate it. Dawn clawed at the things hand. Useless.

The whole time she was gasping but the firm grip on her throat kept her from getting any precious air.

Dawn's fingernails felt warm and wet. She glanced at the Doppelganger's hand around her throat. It was Dawn's own blood. She'd cracked her fingernails with her frantic scratching.

The edges of her vision were growing dim.

_Wait,_ she tried to say. She tried to beg, tried to plead, tried to say anything. But she couldn't speak, and as the darkness at the edges grew closer, swallowing her world from all sides, it wasn't even possible to think the thoughts.

She couldn't hear anything in her own head over the wordless, insensate terror that seemed to grow impossibly without end as Dawn fought the certainty that she was dying.

Here, now, after everything, this was how she died. Looking at her sister's face.

She thought, in so far as she could think past the gibbering fear, that something behind her had broken. There was a sound like a crash.

Dawn's fingers went slack and dropped to her sides. She couldn't feel her hands or her feet anymore. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Even the fear seemed at last to be holding steady.

Then she was falling. Then she was hitting the pavement. Then she was breathing again.

Dawn's eyes shot open. She stared up into the night, gasping. She propped herself up on her elbows. The Doppelganger was standing farther back, its arms up in the defensive position she'd seen Buffy use so many times.

Dawn's head lolled to her right. There was a pair of legs there. Legs in blue jeans which she followed down to a pair of ruined shoes that looked half dissolved, like someone had ground them against the world's fastest sanding belt.

She looked up at Clark. "Took you long enough."

He glanced down at her, reached down and touched her shoulder. "Sorry."

"Well, maybe I should say 'you got here just in time' instead."

Clark looked back at the Doppelganger. "Can you walk?"

Dawn swallowed. Clark offered an arm and she latched onto it. He hoisted her up. Dawn swayed on her feet, then grew steady. She let go of Clark's arm.

Clark stepped forward. "Time to step back."

Dawn looked at him, then back to the Doppelganger. "Clark. It's not a demon or a zombie or anything like that. It's a...well it's a statue?"

Clark turned around and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious! It's a statue that came to life."

Clark sighed and turned back around. "I guess that's just my life now. Get to safety."

Dawn bit her lip. Then she nodded, even though he couldn't see her. She ran over to Simon Grant's car and crouched behind it, poking her head over the hood to watch.

* * *

Clark stepped forward, eyes carefully on the Doppelganger. He was aware of Dawn crouched behind the car. Further up the road he heard running feet. Simon Grant? Time for that later.

The Doppelganger was watching him too, crouched low and dangerous. As soon as he'd burst onto the scene, clipping a tree with his shoulder and cracking it in two on the way, she'd dropped Dawn from the arm she'd been using to strangle her and brought up a professional looking block.

There was no one else on the road. His tear through the forest had frightened the animals, most of whom were now in flight.

There was some unspoken signal, and they came together. Then they flew apart.

Clark was tumbling, crashing into trees. The world was a spinning vortex of dirt and foliage. Then he was up again. He saw the Doppelganger getting up as well.

Dirt sprayed out from behind him as Clark shot forward. They came together again. The Doppelganger thrust with the wooden stake. Clark knew wood wouldn't hurt him, but considering the abnormal factors at play, took no risks.

He grabbed it by the wrist, deflecting the stab so it moved past him, punching into his jacket. He brought his other arm out under its other blow, blocking it.

But he was too slow for the kick that knocked his legs out from under him. Clark dropped to the floor, then rolled.

The ground behind him cracked and kicked up asphalt dust under the force of the Doppelganger's fist.

Clark jumped back to his feet. They strafed each other. The Doppelganger shot first this time.

Clark spun to the side and it swept past him. When it turned, Clark was there. Their blows came and went like a storm of sledgehammers.

Pain exploded under Clark's jaw as the Doppelganger landed a punch that lifted him into the air.

He heard Dawn running away. He hit the car. The metal crumpled around him and the windows all blew all spraying glass onto the road.

Clark pried himself out of the caved in roof of the car to see the Doppelganger rushing him.

Clark shouted out, the forest echoing as he brought his fist down at the last second and struck the Doppelganger in the face.

It shot back, skipped over the road like a stone across a pond. Clark ran after.

It recovered, coming to shaky feet even as it was flying backwards, pavement grinding under it leaving twin black streaks that sizzled with heat.

It was ready for him. It caught his right punch and thrust out with the stake in a blinding quick counter attack. Clark turned, off balance now. He caught the stabbing wrist again in his other hand and then he was off his feet.

The Doppelganger, taking advantage of his unbalanced state, lifted him up and swung him.

Clark felt all the air rush out of his lungs as he was slammed back down onto the road.

The sound of the impact thundered all the way back to the edges of town. A great cloud of black dust flew up into the air.

Clark felt pain shoot up and down his spine. He groaned at the hammering in the back of his head. Then he brought his arms up.

He caught a blow so powerful it actually pushed him further down. He was past the asphalt now, nothing but dirt underneath him.

Through the haze of the dust his superhuman eyes could make out the Doppelganger straddling him. It had both hands on the stake, driving it down with all force.

Clark's hands on the Doppelganger's forearms were blocking that sinister point, positioned to come down right over his heart, but the force behind the thrust was like nothing Clark had even known. Slowly but surely, it was pushing him back.

Clark's heart was hammering as he watched the stake inch closer to his chest. His vision was swimming again, swarming in red dots.

_Not now, dammit!_

His breath was hard and fast as he felt the world growing hotter.

_What is this? What's happening?_

The red dots were multiplying, slowly covering the whole of his vision. He could still see just enough to make out Dawn being stupid.

_Dawn, no, get away!_

He couldn't speak though, he was too busy fighting that inevitable force that pressed down on him from above.

Dawn was behind the Doppelganger. She had something in her hands. It was a thin metal wire she looped around the Doppelganger's neck.

Part of Clark's brain recognized it was cutting wire used for sculpting. He saw dawn pull with all her strength. It was two parts dumb, one part brave.

But valor wasn't always enough. The Doppelganger didn't even turn around or acknowledge in away way the sharp wire around its throat.

The stake was inches away now, plunging ever down.

Clark grit his teeth as the whole world was blotted out by shining red. A feeling that was something both fear and fury escaped him. He screamed it out, expelled it from his body.

With it went something else. The red in his eyes suddenly contracted, narrowing to a tiny point. Clark felt a sudden growing exhaustion, like all the energy in his body was flooding out of him through his eyes.

His gaze was steady on the loop of metallic wire around the Doppelganger's neck. He saw the Doppelganger's face contort in surprise.

The wire was glowing red hot, the skin under it cracking and splintering with the heat.

The power behind the Doppelganger's thrust vanished as it tried to move back. Clark reversed, grabbing the doppelganger's hands, keeping it trapped, pulling it toward him now.

Eyes steady on the wire, he yelled out, "Dawn, pull!"

He heard Dawn cry out as she pulled back with all her strength while Clark pulled forward with all his.

Then, suddenly, the red hot wire passed through, slicing into the Doppelganger's neck. A head of flesh fell, but a head of wax hit the ground.

Dawn fell back and rolled on the ground. Clark went limp, lying in a crater, a wax statue on top of him.

He took several long, slow breaths. Then he pushed the figure off of him and stood up. He saw Dawn on the ground, looking into the sky. She started to get up.

Clark quickly strode to the Doppelganger's fallen head and smashed it to pieces before Dawn could see it.

It may have been a fake, and Clark was no psychiatrist, but seeing your sister's head which you had just severed lying on the ground couldn't be good for anyone's mental health.

Clark destroyed the rest of the statue. Then he walked next to Dawn and fell back down to sit next to her.

"Is it over?" she asked.

Clark, still gasping, looked over the crumbled wax. "I think so."

Dawn leaned forward, hugging her knees. For someone so strong, Clark was surprised by how vulnerable she sometimes looked.

"Guess she's gone," Dawn said. "Again...now what do I do?"

Her smile was bitter. Clark looked up into the night sky.

"I guess," he said, "now you start to heal."

She laughed, low and hash. "Heal? Clark, my sister is dead. She was probably- she _was_ the most important person in my life. I loved her more than anyone, idolized her, I…"

She choked on grief. "How do you 'heal' from something like that?"

The question was sharp, more attack than question. She didn't expect an answer because she didn't think there was one.

"I'm not sure," Clark said, "but, if I had to guess...I'd think you don't do it alone."

Dawn turned and stared at him. Then she half-leaned, half-collapsed against him, burying her face in his shoulder. Clark put an arm around her, and held her still as she trembled.

There were things that needed to be done, but they could wait. They could wait a while so a girl could cry for the things she'd lost, and the things she'd gained.

Later, she recovered her composure and asked him , "where the hell were you anyway? You know, this whole thing could have been avoided if you hadn't stood me up."

"Sorry! I was...well, I wasn't _arrested_ per say…"

Dawn's eyes grew wide. "What? _You_ were arrested? Of the two of us, _you_ were arrested first?"

Clark scowled. "I wasn't _arrested_ arrested. I was sort of...taken in for questioning. I think, and I'm not sure, but just based on the stories you told me...you remember that officer that stopped us before, Officer Cohen?"

Dawn nodded.

"Pretty sure he's a werewolf."

Dawn burst into laughter. "Of course he is. That's exactly what we needed. A freaking werewolf cop. Freaking Sunnydale."

"Freaking Sunnydale," Clark echoed, nodding in agreement.

"So, I'm guessing with his wolfy nose he was able to smell your demony-ness around the crime scenes and that's why he picked you up?"

Clark froze. He glanced at Dawn. She raised an eyebrow in question. He still felt his heart racing, adrenaline or its alien equivalent running through him. Maybe that's why he even considered the thought, overriding a lifetime of parental conditioning.

_Screw it,_ Clark thought.

"About that," Clark said. His mouth was very dry. "I, um...so, I've never told this to _anyone_ before."

Dawn was staring at him now, eyes questioning.

Clark scratched the back of his neck. "You'd be my very first...but, um, basically... _I'manalien_."

Clark heard her gasp.

"Get! Out!"

Clark turned to see her staring at him, eyes shining with excitement.

* * *

"Yo."

Clark looked up as Dawn slid into the seat across from him at the cafeteria table.

"Hey," he replied with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand.

"You know what goes good with peanut butter? Salami."

Clark made a face and she laughed at him, then grinned.

Clark rolled his eyes. "Okay, I recognize that grin. What's the news?"

She whipped a rolled newspaper she'd been holding in her hand onto the table. "Check it out. Officer K-9 did a good job."

Clark glanced over it. "They arrested Grant for the murders?"

"Yup. After the stabbity stabbery, I'm guessing the Doppelganger went back to its den, dripping the victim's blood on the nice carpet. Blood, as anyone who lives with a Slayer knows, is basically impossible to get out of anything. As evidence goes though, some blood on a carpet is so-so. But he took a plea."

"Hm."

"Thanks for getting my own various fluidly leaks out of the apartment, by the way."

"It's not like I left no trace of tampering, but just based on what I saw of the SDPD, I think they'll just take the solve and bury any irregularities. I'm pretty sure Cohen still thinks I was somehow involved."

Dawn grew more serious. "Cohen still giving you problems?"

Clark finished a bite of his sandwich. "I catch him eyeing me from time to time, but nah, he's mostly leaving me alone. I think he's waiting for me to do something weird."

Clark eyed the paper.

"Now it's my turn to be psychic," Dawn said. "What'cha thinking?"

Clark shrugged. "Nothing much."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Stop by later?"

"Spooky stuff?"

"Nah, movie marathon."

Clark smiled. "Love to-"

"-buuuut, now that you mention it, I think I can sneak out tonight, we can squeeze a quick patrol in."

Now it was Clark's turn to roll his eyes. "Sure."

Dawn pumped a victorious fist. "Cool, come by after you've done whatever it is you've decided you want to do but aren't going to tell me about. And consider adding salami to that sandwich."

* * *

Clark picked up the phone as Simon Grant sat across from him behind thick glass, dressed in an unflattering jumpsuit. Grant picked up the phone at his end.

"I think," Clark said, "this is the first time we've met officially. I'm Clark Kent."

Simon Grant glared at him. "This is on you, right? You and Buffy's sister? You guys set me up."

Clark narrowed his eyes at Grant now. Grant couldn't hold up under its pressure.

"Okay," Grant said, "fair enough. You didn't set me up. But...you know I didn't do it! This isn't my fault, I don't deserve to be here!"

Clark's glare softened. He leaned forward. "Mr. Grant. Two people are dead. They're dead and you could have stopped at least one of their deaths. You could have destroyed the Doppelganger as soon as you realized what it was doing. It was vulnerable during the day-"

"-you don't know that!" Grant said. But he couldn't hold Clark's eyes. "I couldn't know that. I was sacred. It's not like I wanted them to die."

Clark sighed. "Mr. Grant...that is a lie."

Grant looked up.

"I'm good," Clark said "at picking up lies. Say again, you didn't destroy the Doppelganger because you were afraid? Is that really the only reason?"

Grant swallowed. He looked down and ran his free hand through his hair. "Oh come on! That...Palumbo was just such a jackass. That guy made my life a freaking hell since high school. He tortured me like every damn day. Why? Because I'm gay."

"So he deserved to die?"

"I don't know, maybe!" Grant gesticulated wildly with one arm. Then he took a deep breath.

"And the Professor?"

"That guy was an asshole, a sleaze, and a scumbag."

"So he deserved to die?"

"...maybe. Probably not." Grant leaned back in the bright plastic seat.

Clark tapped on the table he was leaning on with one finger. "Listen, Mr. Grant...one thing has become clear to me recently and I think you deserve to know."

Simon Grant shrugged and looked away. Clark guessed he was trying to look apathetic.

"Chris Palumbo," Clark said, "was in love with you."

Grant's head shot up at that. "What? No way he wasn't. What the hell do you think you're talking about kid?"

"Did you see the sculpture he made. The one he entered into the contest?"

"Why the hell would I want to see that?"

"It was you, Mr. Grant. He made it in your image."

Clark could see Simon Grant's fingers begin to tremble.

The man slowly shook his head. "No. All he did was bully me, torture me...he couldn't...me and the other kids who were out...he hated us so much…"

Clark gave him an even stare.

"Oh god," Grant said.

"They say what we hate most in others is what we fear in ourselves." Clark said.

_Honestly though,_ Clark thought, _I feel like maybe the backyard garden filled with statues of naked young men should have clued somebody off to at least the possibility._

"Yes," Clark said, "he tortured you, he bullied you, he attacked you. But it wasn't hatred for you, it was confusion. Confusion and fear of himself. So tell me again, Mr. Grant, did he deserve to die?"

Grant was sobbing now. One hand covering his face, the hand on the phone gripping it so tight Clark could see the knuckles going white.

"Two people are dead, Mr. Grant. You've taken their lives. Do you know what it means to have taken their lives? Their lives are yours now. Everything they were, everything they might have been...they're with you now."

Clark set the phone back on the receiver. He stood up, turned around, and walked, leaving Grant behind, still sobbing.

* * *

Clark made one more stop before going to Dawn's, to the house of a dead man.

Clark stood in the entrance hall, staring at a frozen clock that had, unnervingly, changed position.

Both hands were at the twelve. Clark supposed this could be indicating noon, but some unspeakable instinct told him that no, the clock was telling midnight.

Clark took a deep breath. "Hello. Me again. I told him. Simon Grant, I told him the thing I suspect. You were a violent person, Mr. Palumbo. You thrashed about, lashed out, and you hurt people.

"But I understand. I understand the fear that drove you. I know what it's like to fear yourself, to feel like an outsider, to feel like what you are is...wrong, aberrant...alien."

Clark touched a hand to the wall, right below the clock.

"I understand you, Chris. I understand the violence inside. I've understood it my whole life. And I'm sorry, sorry you didn't live long enough to understand the thing I'm beginning to understand now. We are what we are. Being afraid of it, trying to push it away, hide it so deep we can convince ourselves it doesn't exist...that doesn't work.

"That thing we fear is a part of us. Until we learn to live with it, we are never full people. I hope that wherever you are, you are at last wholly yourself. I hope your pain is at an end. I hope your fear is done. I hope your rage is quiet. I hope you are at peace. At peace with what you are. Hopefully someday, I will be too."

Clark looked up at the clock.

It had at last, begun to move forward once again.

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Closing Note:** Whoooooooooooooooooooo! We done, son!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, and extra special thanks to those who reviewed. If you've been reading and have not yet reviewed, please do so now. It's so important for me.
> 
> Now that things are over I would really like for everyone to tell me there thoughts. I'm especially interested in learning what things you guys thought worked and what things you guys thought didn't work.
> 
> Remember, I can only improve as a writer if you guys tell me these things. With your help, whatever I write next will be even better.
> 
> Dialogue has been a particular concern of mine recently.
> 
> Some notes on the story itself. The first few fanfics I did, they were basically rehashes of parts of cannon with added characters. This I think was good for my first few forays. It was a kind of training wheel. But after finishing up 'Where the Sun don't Shine' I knew I wanted to do a crossover that was a totally original story.
> 
> What's the fun if people already know what's gonna happen right? I also wanted it to be as original flavor as possible. A supernatural murder mystery like basically all the episodes of _Buffy_ or _Smallville_.
> 
> Now, since I was going to do an original story for the first time, I decided to purposefully limit the scope of the characters. So this one is all about Clark and Dawn, and even then mostly about Dawn. I get why this turned some people off.
> 
> Dawn is one of those characters you either love or hate, but she's one of my favorites. Maybe the next one will feature more of the Scoobies.
> 
> Speaking of, people have been asking if I will do a sequel to this story.
> 
> Who can know the will of the gods?
> 
> ...me, I can, it's me, I know the will of the gods.
> 
> Their will is 'no'.
> 
> Sorry. I just made this as a oneshot. I don't know what my aversion to sequels is. It's probably because I like introductions so much. I'm always having new ideas about how crossover characters could meet each other, then I get all excited and want to write it.
> 
> I'm not sure what my next work will be. I really should take a break from Smallville/Buffy x-overs. It's basically all I've written.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all again for your support.
> 
> See you in the funny papers.


End file.
